Goldman benefits from trading bonanza Traders at Goldman Sachs recorded only one daily loss in the third quarter, highlighting the trading bonanza sweeping Wall Street as central banks continue to pump billions of dollars into the financial system.
The performance – revealed on Wednesday in a regulatory filing – compares with two losing trading days in the previous quarter and confirms that the authorities’ drive to revive markets after the crisis is yielding huge windfalls for some banks.
Before the crisis, banks regularly recorded trading losses on several days in a quarter.
Goldman made more than $100m in profits on 36 of the 65 days in the three months to September and recorded more than $50m in profit on more than eight out of 10 trading days, the filing shows.
... Goldman’s ability to reap large profits – its trading operations had net income of $6bn during the third quarter – without ramping up risk underlines the changing nature of trading on Wall Street.
...
Trading in the US fixed-income market this year has been dominated by the Federal Reserve, which recently finished buying a planned $300bn in Treasury debt, and is on track to complete buying $1,250bn of mortgage securities by the end of March. These purchases have helped keep market rates low and also normalised the relationship between government bonds and other fixed-income securities.
Dealers say banks have made big profits by the timing of Fed purchases of government debt and subsequent Treasury debt sales, and by betting that the relationship between Treasury bonds and other fixed-income securities would normalise.
I don't want to sound too cynical, but economic efficiency is a secondary goal for Sheila Bair and most of the other regulators and the members of Congress. So, just like the extension and expansion of the home buyers' credit, expect lots of waste as long as it funnels money to political contributors and to voters.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $75 million in fines and forfeit $647 million in fees to settle federal regulators' charges that it made unlawful payments to friends of public officials to win municipal bond business in Jefferson County, Ala.
I have mixed feelings about this arrangement. JP shouldn't have been able to take Jefferson County to the cleaners like it did, but Jefferson County shouldn't get a free pass from corrupt politicians selling its own citizens down the river that horribly...
.
Not enough winners and not enough losing...
patientrenter (profile) wrote on Wed, 11/4/2009 - 10:33 pm
I don't want to sound too cynical, but economic efficiency is a secondary goal for Sheila Bair and most of the other regulators and the members of Congress. So, just like the extension and expansion of the home buyers' credit, expect lots of waste as long as it funnels money to political contributors and to voters.
You call it waste... I call it one of the only viable business models we have left
Danny Davis is my Congressman! Glad to see he's helping us little guys out...
Actually, I'm a little surprised he had time in between his lobbyist-paid trips to call up regulators and try to push them around. Hmm. Maybe he called from the plane.
The fact that the FDIC is closing down banks clearly demonstrates that $700 billion in TARP money just wasn't enough. That's barely enough to pay for a couple of years' bonuses at Goldman. If our elected officials really cared about America they would have authorized at least $700 trillion for TARP, and they would stop with all the bothersome inquiries about auditing the Fed and so forth. But it's not too late for Congress to fully fund the Obama-Geithner No Banker Left Behind recovery plan. Yes We Can.
Aww, screw it. Let's just give the bankers their Jubilee and be done with it. Turn over all of your liabilities to Uncle Sam--including your federal tax liabilities--and start over. Everyone wins!
The fact that the Chicago Tribune had to explain that Danny Davis is a Congressman in Chicago should give you an idea of how much time he dedicates to his constituents.
Read and weep.
Extending UI is the right thing to do, but why can't the Congress demand that people who get these extra 1.5 years of unemployment benefits do at least some community service???
Senate Approves More Jobless Benefits WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to offer up to 20 more weeks of unemployment benefits to those who have been out of work a long time, after weeks of delay in which hundreds of thousands of Americans exhausted their government aid. The measure will increase to 99 weeks, or nearly two years, the maximum length of time that a jobless worker can get benefits in some states.
As early as Thursday, the House is expected to approve the Senate version, which differs from the measure it passed six weeks ago, so the legislation can be signed into law by President Obama.
Extending UI is the right thing to do, but why can't the Congress demand that people who get these extra 1.5 years of unemployment benefits do at least some community service???
Because in the real world, it isn't UI. It is welfare. Welfare usually means "I give you stuff and you won't burn down my government." Community service doesn't fit in that mold.
Extra UE will help some folks. For most of us, it simply isn't enough money. Only problem is that there aren't any jobs. So, I and others are going back to school. This makes us ineligible for UE. I thought I would be able to work IT the rest of my life. I was wrong.
sheesh that was way back in the 80s...who remembers back that far
.
....Ahemmm...........(cough, cough)........it wasn't THAT far back - even for a past drug addled, booze wracked body such as the one I own, thank you......
Dude, I don't think you have the caste system straight. Community service is for probationers. It goes like this:
New York Bankers
Junior New York bankers
Hedge Fund Operators
Big New York bank employees not yet mentioned
Charlotte NC Bankers
Presidents
Other Big Bankers
Treasury Secretaries
Other Junior Big Bankers
Federal Reserve Board Members
Anyone who gets a bank bonus
Big lobbyists
Congresspeople
Smaller lobbyists
Governors
The FDIC
Small bankers
Really small lobbyists
Other politicians
Everyone else except the unemployed and people in the criminal justice system
The unemployed
Probationers
Prisoners
Gold: This is a giant high level trap for the ignorant traders and newbies, those who are slow to act who just got in. I'm exiting the entirety of the 50% unsold position of the portion of gold I hold for trading purposes. 1085++ and I'm gone. That's about 9-10% in 2 months, unleveraged. When it cracks, I'll reposition. It's someone else's bag, now.
I yet see gold at $6000, but that's 4 yrs from now. And much higher gold on its way. Positional positions stay on. Short term trading, now flat.
As to what others do, I never allow anyone else's opinion not vetted and solid with years of public statements, influence me whatsoever.
I cancelled the Tribune a few years ago. It went all Liberal, all the time. I heard they lost other readers too. Now they filed for bankrupcy.
It's now $1 per week for 3 day-a-week delivery. I subscribe for the Sunday coupons and the Wednesday food ads. The rest of the paper goes straight to the recycling bin. That paper is a train wreck of epic proportions. Not that the Sun Times is any better.
Fitch, the credit rating agency, has just downgraded the sovereign debt ratings for the Republic of Ireland from AA+ to AA-. That is two notches and is proof-positive that the ratings agencies are worried about the hole in Dublin’s finances.
I'm lookin' to borrow money and place it all in gold, and then surrender the gold as collateral. I'll pay interest at 3% with an offset. I'll give the lender 25% of the rise in the market price offsetting the 3% simple interest. I assume all the risk. The amount to be borrowed is 7 figures. It's like a futures trade, but the physical is acquired. I don't trust GLD or the futures market to perform when the crunch is in. I can't determine when the crunch will be and it's a risk I won't accept. The Hunts' taught the lesson to everyone else. Take it, hold it, and screw off to everyone else.
What's the flaw besides the fact that risk is being taken?
As an aside, I've been trying to get the lender into gold for the past 4 years, unsuccessfully; so this is the carrot I'm dangling.
As I believe gold will go to 1600-1800 in 2010, I consider this risk to be worth the payoff. Entry will be after the pigs now at the trough have their ears clipped, which will occur, and I'll wait for that.
why can't the Congress demand that people who get these extra 1.5 years of unemployment benefits do at least some community service???
UE seems to be kind of low in the scheme of things in comparison to the mountains of liabilities taken on by the Gov and 0% loans going out to the TBTF. What do we get in return from them in exchange? Besides the incessant bitching about any new regulation or consumer protections, of course.
I believe that in my comments about TARP for banks too small to fail
I touched on this issue... I pointed to the pressure that was brought to bear
on Congress in the early 80s to change the rules that dealt with what an S&L
could have in its portfolio... remember, once they de-regulated passbook savings
rate that gave S&Ls a 50 basis point advantage they were effectively dead...
I went on to say that all small banks nationwide should use that playbook
since 'all politics is local' and they can leverage that in ways the big faceless
banks can not...
You understimate the problems facing us in Ireland.
Currently unemployment is 12.5%.
Social welfare accounts for 35% of all government expenditure for 2009.
A two parent ,two child family on social welfare are entitled to collect in excess of 37,000 euros tax free.(’McCarthy An Bord Snip’ report
published recently).
The average industrial wage is 32,000 euros which is taxed ensuring there is little incentive to work when those on social welfare are far
better off.There is now a thriving black economy.
barfly, the breakaway gap is real, at around 1045. It's 10 bucks. That's large. 90% + of the time, it gets filled. Today's trading is what I call the "lure". It's so stable and attractive to get into now what seems like reasonably priced gold. I have seen that pattern over and over. Yes, sometimes, it breaks to the upside; most of the time, it tarries long enough to allow all who want on to get on. A drop of $50 is highly probable. I'll wait this one out. My entry was $990-995. The money at this point is God's money, not mine. If it happens, it belongs to the next person, not me. That's kewl. I don't lose on my trades. I either win or breakeven. I can't tolerate loss. I won't sacrifice profit because I want more. I see risk in the current market set up; so, I left.
Further, I foresaw this move and acted on it 2 months ago. So, as it comes to an end, and the probabilities in my mind shift, I release from what I thought would happen, take what I said I expected, 10%, and leave the rest to those who understand something I don't. I don't trust any advice but my own. Others may ratify it, but I don't follow anyone.
Slumdog
wrote: The Hunts' taught the lesson to everyone else. Take it, hold it, and screw off to everyone else.
if memory serves for all their brilliance they still got screwed when I think it was Englehard
was able to change the delivery terms of a contract otherwise they would have cornered the market...
the gov/exchange changed the rules in the middle of the game
None of us here are big enough to influence the market, Duke.
There is one thought I don't follow, but which naws at me all the time, and that's what Sinclair said... assets in one country, owned by a corp in a 2nd country, and stock held in a 3rd country. He has been consistently concerned about nationalization of his golden asset. I've explored it. It's easy to do via Canada, to get a 2nd step away, and all this being totally legal, too. Illegal stuff is above my paygrade.
And, yes, the Govt changed the rules... imo totally illegally. That was another lesson. The Govt is self serving. It's happening now as they save the Primary Dealers, even though they're all insolvent and should be bankrupted. The Govt is dangerous to the common working man.
Duke, you saw what happened when it came to TARP time, just within the past year. Scum like NPR as well as every major news network ignored and discounted the strident and compelling ears of those who wanted to reconstitute the banks. The problem was and is the cheaters are also the Primary Dealers... as in SYSTEMIC in the phrase, SYSTEMIC RISK. It would mean the collapse of the financing arm of the Treasury. I know of no solution for this. It just is. So, the response from the USG is to thrash around and kill everything except for their lifeline to debt, the Primary Dealers. This was so from day one and was so noted by me and others.
After TARP, the concept of a line called morality was proven to be of no meaning. End of discussion... Turn to self preservation. And I did that now 8 years ago when I saw this coming. The TARP to me was the saddest political day of my adult life; it was a severe body blow to the Constitution. I refuse to allow that to continue, and I'm powerless to do anything about it... save protect my own economic ass.
say about 9 years ago I noticed a dearth of Irish bartenders in NYC, if you can imagine that,
now I know why: A two parent ,two child family on social welfare are entitled to collect in excess of 37,000 euros tax free.
......
on a further note it's nice to be ahead of the curve for once, your local banks tend to be more active in
the community, sponsoring Little League and that sort of stuff... it's harder for the big banks to do this
for obvious reasons (there no Mitch and Murray breathing down the necks of the community banks)...
I would even go out on a limb here and say 1 dollar of campaign contribution locally is worth 5 on the state
or 10 on the national level...
"The debt situation is irrecoverable,.......I don't see any orderly way out of this. They will not be able to fund their deficit. There will be a fiscal shutdown, a pension haircut, and bank failures that will rock the world. It is criminally negligent that rating agencies are not blowing the whistle on this.........The Great Recession has eaten up 27% in tax revenues. Industrial output is down 19%, even after the summer rebound; exports are down 31%; the economy is 10% smaller today in "nominal" terms than a year ago - and nominal is what matters for debt."
.
mp
from a previous thread:
thanks for that YouTube link to Granny Firing a Machine Gun, actually found it about 6 months ago
and I think even posted it once very late night... very funny... liked here 'spray and pray' approach...
Scum like NPR as well as every major news network ignored and discounted the strident and compelling ears of those who wanted to reconstitute the banks.
That's not my recollection of events from that time period.
I trust you've watched and listened to the Bill Moyers Journal segment that MrM linked above, as well as the segments that preceded and followed that one from April regarding the bankster's fraud.
The word is out there. The important question is how many are listening.
Calling everyone "scum" doesn't accomplish much of anything.
As they assessed the results, Democratic lawmakers and party strategists said their judgment was that voters remained very uneasy about the economy and did not see Democrats producing on the health, energy and national security changes they promised when voters swept them to power only a year ago.
“Most of us ran on that,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia and president of the party’s freshman class. “We must deliver. I need to give Democrats something to be excited about.”
The fact that the Chicago Tribune had to explain that Danny Davis is a Congressman in Chicago should give you an idea of how much time he dedicates to his constituents.
Why would the constituents care - in Chicago the aldermen are more powerful than congressmen & senators any day.
Chicago politics seems to give a whole new meaning for "professional politician". I was appalled when locally a tile-man had to pay a $2K bribe to get a town job..........I'd probably be amazed at the scope of sleaze in Chicago.
I was appalled when locally a tile-man had to pay a $2K bribe to get a town job.....
I had to read this several times before I realized it wasn't worth the money. Prior to that, I was thinking, two large, I dunno, what's so bad about that? Given the proper level of talent. Then I 'saw' it was a town job, not what I was thinking.
Slumdog,
my comments were not based on any idea I have any influence but rather on the fact that it's
the only time I've been right in '09 in this arena... tote up the score when you can!
as for Primary Dealers and US Gov reminds me of
this one vid mash of The International with Clive Owen where this Italian industrialist is
explaining the international banking system to Clive and Naomi Watts... love the way he says
"Slaves to Debt" - that line alone is worth the watch... YouTube - Clive Owen & Naomi Watts Learns the Horrors of Goldman Banking 'The International' 其言糞土也
Ironically the very disaster the article predicts is what would save them - a currency crisis. The yen goes back to 200 or so to the dollar and their export mfg market gets healthy pretty fast.
Optimistic at this point seems to be keeping our collective head above water. I'm losing optimism. Head under water
And they tell me to breathe easy for a while
The breathing gets harder, even I know that YouTube -
I was appalled when locally a tile-man had to pay a $2K bribe to get a town job..........I'd probably be amazed at the scope of sleaze in Chicago.
The patronage is worse yet - if you work for the city you probably have to deliver votes for the machine - its an undocumented part of the job description.
The yen goes back to 200 or so to the dollar and their export mfg market gets healthy pretty fast.
I guess this is one of those examples of the sense of entitlement we Americans are possessed of.
Most logical way a big dog exercises dominion is on the big dog's terms. And he don't care if the two of them together are 50% of world GDP, we gonna shrink the dollar to a new world parity and anyone don't like it can suck it.
sorry, all...
here's a much better 'Slaves to Debt' vid mash-up where Bernanke's copter opens it and Geithner makes
an appearance, so does the Debt Monkey and it closes with O being chased by a plane ...
I should also say it go almost 6000 hits in about 10 days, very unusual for this kind of material!! YouTube - Obama Calls Kanye West JACKASS & Spike Jonze Calls Obama Cocky & Xavier Bardem Agrees
Yeah slumdog,
Calling the media or whoever 'scum' is not very polite as we enter the worst Depression of All Time. You have to mind your manners in more polite discussion groups and refrain from such emotionalism.
Duke of Con, hi. One day, and that day may never come, I may once again be certain of myself to the extent I had a craving need to tell others how absolutely fabulous whatever I do, is.
If things get really bad, slumdog, just watch something that has some 'decadent escapism' values and just remember the Law of Attraction. If gold shots way up in a Crash...where will you sell it safely and locally if you need some 'spending' (devalued) cash?
Most logical way a big dog exercises dominion is on the big dog's terms. And he don't care if tyhe two of them together are 50% of world GDP, we gonna shrink the dollar to a new world parity and anyone don't like it can suck it.
I would agree with you EXCEPT as I've said here a thousand times... we are STILL importing WAY MORE than we export...its not like we are going to run a surplus anytime soon... They are in effect working for FREE... worthless paper they then have to recycle back via US treasury buys.
It blows my mind that 'we' are the 'bad guys' for allowing our currency to depreciate which results in our slaves actually getting 'paid'.
People will be able to trade gold for sex for example. But better to have a bunch of tenth ounce coins for that unless you getting into the expensive stuff.
People will be able to trade gold for sex for example. But better to have a bunch of tenth ounce coins for that unless you getting into the expensive stuff.
Glod is a wonderous thing,
I mean, aside from its "bling".
There's no and's, if's, or but's,
The collectors go nuts
For the safety they think it can bring.
your accusation of npr being scum shows an absence of information and unfounded prejudice against public radio
npr stations have more than a few programs that report economic and business news
below is the list of stories just during the week of october 13-17 when some of the most uproarious debates about proposed tarp legislation occurred around the country
this is just one week one program called "marketplace"
this american life and other programs on NPR were banging away on the issue of tarp at the same time
i challenge you to document a news source that even comes close to providing the in depth coverage of business and economic issues that npr does . .
here are the story summaries and the link so you can research on your own is
The U.S. Treasury
What's in the bailout package now
Having the government buy stakes in banks as part of the $700 billion-plus bailout program is a significant change financially and ideologically. Kai Ryssdal asks economist Robert Litan how this is going to work.
Dollar bills pass through printing press
A rescue package that's 'unlimited'
The Fed is leading an extraordinary push to restore liquidity in the world financial markets by offering "unlimited" greenback funds in auctions. So, does that mean the sky's the limit? Bob Moon finds out.
French President Sarkozy and Britain PM Brown
European plan puts cash in banks
Call it the bailout heard round the world. After a weekend of meetings, France, England, Germany and other European countries unveiled their rescue plan: pump cash, cash and more cash directly into banks. Stacey Vanek-Smith takes a look.
interest rates paper
Credit markets want to see the money
Have the financial rescue plans done anything yet to encourage banks to start lending again? So far, the major credit benchmarks aren't moving much. Senior business correspondent Bob Moon reports.
Giving money
The strings attached to cash infusions
The idea of having the Treasury Department take stakes in selected banks is to provide them with cash to start making loans again, not to keep it to themselves. Janet Babin wonders if banks will agree to that.
Now, the shipping news is bad
The latest indication of global economic slowdown comes from something called the Baltic Dry Index. It tracks the price of hauling commodities like oil and grain. Those prices are at the lowest point in five years. Jeremy Hobson reports.
Corn cob held in a cornfield.
Can cheap commodities be a bad thing?
With oil prices slipping below $75, prices for corn, gold and other commodities are also down. That's good news for consumers, but what about the overall economy? Will it spark inflation? Nancy Marshall Genzer has answers.
Dollar bills at Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Where's this bailout cash coming from?
The Fed soon starts lending directly to corporations, plus it's pledged unlimited dollars to foreign central banks. So, just how much is this gonna cost, and where's the Fed getting the money? Steve Henn finds out.
Trader calming watching market board
Can bailouts keep panic at bay?
The bailout plans from the U.S. and other countries do seem to be calming nerves in the financial sectors at least a little bit. Kai Ryssdal asks MIT economist Simon Johnson if this is the beginning of the end.
Checking the state of the auto industry
Reports say GM and Chrysler have stepped up merger talks, with GM running out of cash. Toyota, on the other hand, is promoting a new zero-financing initiative for 11 models. Ashley Milne-Tyte has more.
An oil rig off the coast of Nigeria
Don't get too used to lower gas prices
The recent drop in oil prices might have us smiling at the pump now, but those lower prices could head back up. OPEC is expected to cut production during an emergency meeting next week. Nancy Marshall Genzer has more.
Definition of investiment in dictionary
A requiem for big investment banks
Investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers have been major casualties of the financial crisis. With investors skeptical about risk, is the investment banking model dead? London Bureau Chief Stephen Beard reports.
Wall Street sign
Week on Wall Street
Are we in a recession? A slowdown? A rebalancing? What happens next? Kai Ryssdal asks Mike Mandel, writer for BusinessWeek, and Johs Worsoe, senior executive vp, global markets, for Union Bank, for their thoughts.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Looking back to Bretton Woods
President Bush will meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at Camp David. It's not likely to lead to a worldwide summit because the president is in lame duck status. But Jeremy Hobson reports on something that might come up.
I haven't met a rich man yet that made his fortune in gold. Granted I've only known half dozen people or so that have accumulated over a million in assets, but none of them made mention of it.
mock,
I had a friend on the Left who tried to get me to listen to NPR for years and claimed it was very informative...so I tried it a few times and the news host sounded like he was on some kind of opiate he sounded so mellow and laid back plus at the time there was a story on about some insignificant consumer issue (don't remember what) about the time of the TARP bailout I think...do they do hard hitting stuff like investigating _______________ or ______________. Fill in the blank with numerous entities that have enabled this mess.
I haven't met a rich man yet that made his fortune in gold. Granted I've only known half dozen people or so that have accumulated over a million in assets, but none of them made mention of it.
MIght not make your fortune, buy might help you keep it.
Barely an adequate emergency defense system my friend...although the turkey drippings oozing down the temples, does offer a quick snack, and a unique scent.
But that does not sell newspapers. (R) being in a tight spot, and seeming to lack much of a national vision, have to make the most out of what victories they can get.
Good thing they don't have to think about the unfunded liabilities...
Nor does anyone - the 'funding' itself doesn't matter - it isn't the problem... its what people expect to buy & consume using that funding that will be the show stopper. That is if the resources aren't there how much money there is to 'pay for it' is meaningless - you can't eat the money.
Senator Kaufman was a single panel member and talked about how he became interested in this after the SEC repealed the uptick rule. Among his comments he mentioned his concern that technology has overtaken the ability of the SEC to regulate the markets to some extent and believes that the repeal of he uptick rule had a lot to do with the Lehman and Bear Stearns failures. He also seemed to imply that the markets should exist such that long term investors can save money and have a golden retirement. He was followed by a people representing the SEC, the trader association, folks who are involved in market routing, NASDAQ person, and one guy who claimed to be unbiased and did seem a bit unbiased. Because of the audio it was hard for me to triangulate who was saying what. I'll take the items topic-based rather than time-based as the question/discussion was cut off somtimes by the time-limit.
Dark Pools
There was discussion on dark pools and their transparency and how much of the market they make (I think its grown from 1% to 10% over the past 5 years?). There was some general agreement that dark pools are used by institutions to somewhat hide large orders so that the market can't use that information. One of the benefits of the dark pool is that the parties to a trade are anonymous, I believe the SEC has a proposed rule to unmask the anonymity and identify to the tape which pool a trade came from. Dark pools are required to have their trades recorded on the tape, but they don't have to tell the identity of the traders. If this rule were to happen (sounded like some institutions were against), it might simply set people back to calling up a "specialist" to take place in these large orders (100,000 shares). I know very little about trading, but what troubled me about the discussion was that as far as pre-trade investing; a small-time trader has to put his order out there pre-trade (he could do a market order, I suppose). However, everyone seemed like it was okay for a large institution (mutual fund/pension fund) to hide this pre-trade information from coming to the market, thus hiding the amount of liquidity that is out there. It's the larger traders who will move the market more than the smaller traders... but understandable why they don't want to reveal themselves as in the process of selling/buying a large block of shares.
Additionally there does seem to appear to be a lack of transparency from the dark pools. One of the person routing trades mentioned that his concern was about what happens to the order when it goes into a dark pool or goes out. It sounded like they tried to get information on the routing of the order from the dark pool, but were blocked by the dark pools due to some "proprietary, legal, confidential" agreements or something. Not sure why he mentioned this... wouldn't you simply stop trading with a dark pool if they were not disclosing what happened to your trades?
Flash Orders
Didn't get a lot of discussion that I can remember. Someone in talking about them mentioned that flash orders were a way to get some transparency and information out of the dark pools, and by using a flash order it was a way to interrigate various dark pools and trading markets/
High Frequency Trading
Lots of agreement from the trader folk that high frequency traders are simply the new "market makers".. There was some concern from the SEC that high frequency trading could be abused to generate momentum for a position and may need some regulation.
Throughout the meeting it seemed like the SEC was preaching about a balance between liquidity and transparency and fairness, especially in regards to avoiding a two-tiered market. The traders and their advocates all seemed to love to talk about how much liquidity is in the market and how great it is; but didn't seem to give a lot of talk about the transparency and fairness aspects (understandable). The unbiased person seemed to indicate there could be room for more transparency in regards to the market.
One of the institutional traders said his job is to trade against the high frequency traders, and if he can tell that they have sniffed out one of his orders he'll cancel the order. When asked about "why not call the SEC?" or something he made a great comment about being suspicious of all the counterparties to his trades and he'd be on the phone with the SEC all day.
One of the Senators mentioned the arrest of the russian guy (forgot the name, wow thats out of the news fast?) accused of stealing GS high frequency trading code. His concern was that there is a potential national security issue (I'll touch more on this with sponsered access).
Co-Location
Co location was briefly touched upon. Sounded like some of the people were advocating co-location was okay, as long as everyone was allowed the oppurtunity to co-located on similar terms. One of the panel members downplayed it... saying the information is traveling at the speed of light and there's not much time difference between co-location and across the street.
volker
not sure what you were trying to say about me but I thought that since the movie called The International took time to explain
what banking is all about on the international level whether it's a pure fantasy or not it will influence maybe a million people
or two people, the ones that saw it in theatres and the presumably greater video audience... the once scene I lifted to use in my vid will have more influence than anything CR does on his blog for the next two years. Bill is no match for Clive Owen.
Remember JFK by Stone? it had a tremendous impact on how that assassination is viewed today, not say by the intelligentsia but
by Joe6Pack and kids...
MIght not make your fortune, buy might help you keep it.
About 5 years ago, I tried to convince a wealthy gentleman I know to buy gold, to take about $1 million cash out of various CDs and such and buy at $444. He didn't. He sat on his cash and his CRE and, while he certainly is very well off, he could have been better off.
(But then I'm not sure that even matters once one is set for life.)
yep that is true,i tell them no its the bankers, the big banks.the federal reserve bank,it the treasury. dont think it work, it doesnt make sense to them.it is hard to look down on someone you have taught to look up to.
The thing about the 'tinfoil' sites owned by bigger media fish maybe is the stories are entertaining the way history channel is or nat geo...there's a certain hypnotic repetetiveness to the programming...it lulls you into a gentle fear state while being interesting and mis-informative.
The Obama birth certificate stories really scare the crap out of ya...the Illuminati stories that are run by the same sites year after year after year that you'd think they'd change the 'story line' once in a while...just to change up the programming...must be a method to the tinfoil sites,,,they stay in business as their audiences grow and the links stay the same over the years...so it's a network that works together and grows in ad sales...
Sponsored Access
The one issue that had consensus was sponsored access. This is firms or non-firms having direct access to the markets. When this occurs sometimes there are pre-trade mechanisms that are bypassed. It sounded like there was a concern a bad actor with sponsored access and some type of high frequency trading algorithm like Goldman's code could propose a systematic risk if it was in the wrong hands. This was obliquely mentioned... but in my mind it would be like a bad actor having sponsored access and moving the markets in a major way through trading... advertising the ability to sell things they didn't have and buy things with money that doesn't exist?
The one thing I wished the Senators had done is follow up on all of the issues that Kaufman brought up. Why not ask them, "did the uptick rule contribute to Lehman and Bear Stearns going down?", and the elephant in the room like "do you think the markets should be biased towards the long term investor?"
Ahh! The irony. Kind of shoots holes in your conspiracy theory, doesn't it? Maybe, just maybe, they aren't out to get you.
Then again, when I see something sponsored by the Goldman Sachs Foundation, maybe I'll reconsider.
merchants of fear (profile) wrote on Thu, 11/5/2009 - 12:34 am
...must be a method to the tinfoil sites,,,they stay in business as their audiences grow and the links stay the same over the years...so it's a network that works together and grows in ad sales...
There is a business for every vice. Confronted by a problematic reality, many folks will spontaneously think of the same solution - the more obvious the route, the greater the chance it has already been explored.
I guess 4 out of 5 sounded too much like dentists.
Hey, were talking RE agents here. Math is not their strong suit. They are still struggling with negative numbers, reduction of fractions is still a bit outside the box for them.
Tropical Depression IDA Public Advisory
she is still there and the hurricane center is watching her very closely
we really dont need this ,i hope we dont get this.
Big Thanks YSLP!
for some time now I've wondered what 'dark pools' are, when I jump over to Zero Hedge they seem to get
talked about a lot...
... strange the panel blew off co-location as an issue seeing that moving near the speed of light is the great
equalizer??? I get off a trade at 3 milliseconds to your say 10 and I won't stomp all over you...
this topic was handled quite well be ZH 6 weeks ago
since you asked...here are the exact numbers from NPRs published financial statement
* 31% from listeners in the form of pledges, memberships, and other donations
* 20% from businesses via corporate underwriting
* 11% from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is federally funded*
* 10% from licensee support
* 9% from foundations and major gifts
* 5% from local and state governments, and
* 14% from all other sources.
(my note: other sources include endowments from estates and sales of CDs transscripts and other retail activities)
I'm a big fan of this post. This post tells the whole story. Who is in charge? Is it Treasury? Is it t he buerocracy? Nope... its Congress. They are just damn slick at deflecting all the blame.
People who say Obama is a third term of Bush are wrong.
Obama is simply the extension of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush administration... RBCBO! Did we have a savings and loan crises in the 60s or 70s?
I remain absolutely convinced that CRE in the so-called Inland Empire (basically, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in California) is presently supine and comatose and the prognosis is grave.
This is the worst I have ever seen and it clearly is still on a downward trajectory. I honestly have no idea how it will recover in my lifetime. Perhaps it will, of course, but I can't say "how."
YLSP - its Congress. They are just damn slick at deflecting all the blame.
Yep, kiss the mothers, steal the babies candy, slap/tax the daddy silly.
This I think is a once in a Generation opportunity to follow the money and influence to reveal what our current political system is all about.
Might be interesting, should I stock up on pop-corn?
...'shoots a hole in your conspiracy theory...'
Barfly,
You probably don't read my stuff too closely...I don't think say big corporations like Ford are evil...maybe their products are good.matbe not...depends on your tastes...
I have cited a bunch of macroeconomic research papers and macroeconomic models that show how financial/currency crises and deflationary boom/bust cycles occur...also showed how much international cooperation(G-20, G-8) there is...that central banks everywhere seem to follow similar policies over time and agree frequently...that banking reform deregulation was removed that allowed risk to increase geometrically...that the steps the U.S. government and U.S. central bank are taking have lead to financial/currency crises and collapses in the past. From the research I cited this mess seems like it could have been avoided but right now the steps are being taken to insure a collapse according to economists who have looked into contagion, collapses, etc.
OT, a follow up to the C4C list of most frequently purchased vehicles--the information in this article is more consistent w/what I've seen in my area, but I thought that I might be seeing a small sample (low population) and what seems like high % of people in area fancy themselves macho if they drive pickups, the bigger the more macho, even if they never seem to need a pickup (i.e., bed's are always empty)--also suggests/demonstrates program not worth much from decreased pollution perspective. Clunker pickups traded for new pickups, AP analysis finds | Politics & Elections - - Oregonlive.com
Not all RE agents are bad. My GF's uncle and aunt has to sell his house (Grandma's house really. She was a single mom of 3 and a RE agent, so many memories there, etc etc) and move in with his daughter (an awesome lawyer) after being in RE for 35 years cause he hasn't been able to sell shit in the past year or so. He's pretty smart, very nice, very caring, very giving, just unfortunate in getting rolled in this wave.
I would never pass up a chance to take a shot at RE agents or bankers.
They are ripe for satire, no doubt. The funny thing is most of them are just people trying to make a living.
Now, the Wall Street types and the David Lereah, Lawrence Yun types should be in whipping posts in town squares all around the country . . . at least until we run out of them . . . either the whipping posts or the miscreants.
Re: Scum NPR, the position they took as newscasters was grammatical constructs which favored the passage of the legislation. Something along the lines of, "If the TARP doesn't pass, the economy will crash." It was Volker's line bought by NPR. I know enough of news reality vs what the news sells as its position. NPR was selling the party line. At the time, most in Mish's blog were adamantly opposed to the crossing of the morality line which TARP blew out totally. Being immoral now is not being immoral. It's being a whatever is the positive of the moment. TARP saved the Primary Dealers. That's what it was about. The USG would have collapsed financially with the immediate collapse of those banks which yet should collapse (we took AIG, GMAC, GE, and you name it, all in the name of systemic integrity. This has driven the dollar into a slide, and it will slide now incredibly, and I'm very unhappy about it. And it's driven gold up. The end game is obvious. It plays in slow motion, but it's obvious.
Again, and there's nobody here who can tell me I did not hear what I heard, more than one time, on the day before the vote; the normally say-nothing NPR became a bias-the-audience NPR. Of course, Fox said what it said and GE's stooge, NBC, said what GE needed it to say. But NPR was the last great hope for disinterested journalism. Wrong.
Barfly,
You figure that economic policy advisors and central banking administrators have advanced degrees in Economics...that they have been exposed to economic research literature until they wanted to puke...that they were exposed when they were students to the economic research and models of the day...and that as professionals, they have kept up with the research literature.
And there's a whole area of macroeconomic research that looks at as I've said over & over...currency crises, financial crises, speculative attacks, deflationary cycles, etc. there are conclusions in this research.
If certain policies are pursued like unsustainable govt. spending, high unemployment, and if there are structural imbalances to the economy...this weakness can end up being a target for speculators and (manufactured) EXPECTATIONS OF CURRENCY DEVALUATION AND IT SEEMS THAT THIS IS WHAT THE U.S. IS GOING THROUGH NOW...caps for occasional emphasis off...
NPR has a couple of commentators (commenters sp?) daniel schore being one
except for these you almost never hear one of their anchors or reports tell you the listener "what it is"
npr instead interviews a number of people we might consider to be experts and then conclusions are left up to the listener
if you gave me the name of the program you feel told you tarp had to pass or else (evening edition, this american life, all things considered etc)
i would go back over the archives and see if i can find it
edit
btw...without tarp the financial system and the economy probably would have crashed...im not so sure that would have been altogether a bad thing since, i think the economy will be destroyed by other means eventually anyway...just take longer
by the way..i wrote three letters to my elected representative AGAINST TARP and like you i believe that tarp was an absolute crime against working americans and our children
i published those letters here at CR and can give you the link if you want to go back and see for yourself
mock, I think the overwhelming consensus here was that TARP was a horrible idea. There were thousands of comments posted on the subject, some celebration and ultimately defeat.
The most striking thing about it to me (and only to me, I might add) is that I was quoting Nancy Reagan as my ending tag line. I think Inland Empire CRE is likely to rebound before that happens again.
bsr
i dont think there is anything we can do but ride the thing on down to the bottoms and thur the bounces until it finally stops and slowly makes its way back up
and this wont be the one to end all depressions it will happen again.just a matter of time.
MoF, if you think our government is trying to crash our economy by throwing the kitchen sink at it, well, I don't know what to say. That may certainly be the result, but I doubt very seriously that is the intention. Anyway, it's too late now. We'll just have to ride it out.
Slumdog,
If the bubble economy which was pumped up by a lack of mortgage lending standards, scam ratings, hit-the-mark RE/CRE appraisals, insider trading, corporate raiders, pump and dump, etc. was ALLOWED to Fail last year along with all the securitization toxic 'assets' before TARP and the alphabet soup of bailouts... since its structure was rotten it needed to self-destruct...trillion$ could have been saved and the Greatest Depression of all Time might have been avoided as the Too Big To Fail Collapse washing out corruption and mismanagement then...
NPR has a couple of commentators (commenters sp?) daniel schore being one
Meh, as a long time NPR listener and donor, I kind of have to agree with Slumdog to a little bit of a slant. Way too many interviews of Fuld/NAR/ and not enough Taleb, Ritholtz, Roubini or Schiff. I can kind of forgive them a little bit as, I'm sure NPR/PBS noticed a severe drop in donations/sponsorship since TSHTF.
But calling them scum, seems a bit overboard compared to any other media outlet, other than the bloggers (who apparently could do the math).
barfly,
Just review the financial/currency collapse literature...ever heard the saying 'They should have known' or 'What were they thinking'...or 'They just don't get it'...or"I thought they knew about this stuff'...or 'What were you in school for?' or 'You can lead a horse to water...'
hmm - trying to crash our economy... let's do a slight thought experiment here ... We're knowingly handing out money by the truckload to precisely those the public would later blame for causing the crisis in the first place, and silently talking over key industries to be government-run. Not to solve any problems or magically "heal" the economic engine of finance, but to create stress, apathy and dread in the citizenry... to the end of accepting even more governmental control, oversight and market intervention in the future.
It doesn't make sense at first, but we are thinking of it as a long-term strategy. What if it's not? You want to make FU money for yourself and leave everyone else high and dry. Survival of the fittest baby. Obligate a country to trillions in debt they'll never repay? Oh well, you're buying an island or moving to a moon colony. F the rest, I got mine!
... Hmmm. I'm not convinced but it was a fun exercise.
all wish that NPR had done an infinitely better job of screaming from the rooftops "the shit is gonna hit the financial fan"
and yes more ritholtz rubini and taleb etc
but then thats why you and slumdog and i and so many here go to CR, naked cap, big picture, zero hedge, prudent bear, market ticker, jesses cafe etc etc etc
to get the stories and facts the mass media only skims at best
barfly,
If our economic advisors and administrators who are trained economists with advanced degrees have 'studied' and read the 'financial/currency collapse' studies I have cited and even more I haven't obviously, yes they should know the results of cause-and-effect in the sequence of events that lead to economic collapses IMHO.
Heck, some of the highly regarded economists who are advocating huge govt. spending & deficits have written the 'financial/currency crisis' studies and models.
It's simply baffling.
barfly,
I just stumbled into this stuff surfing the internet for econ stories...like I said 'conspiracy' is not found in the macroeconomic research I've found...just hypotheses of how economic events happen...and the variables, etc.
Whole hearted agreement from here. I have my own suspicions for how this might come to pass, but none of them are any credit to the economists in question.
Yes it can and on a scale beyond what people can fathom. Barter is a serious threat to the status quo and the dollar credit based trick system. Watch for legislation aimed at it.
Barter is the matching of haves and wants. These things can be easily paired online, eliminating the dollar in the transaction. Eliminating the dollar excludes dollar based credit from that part of the economy.
Look at currency markets for an example of a highly evolved barter market. EUR/USD mean euros in dollars. No reason you can't have barter pairs analogous to currency pairs like toaster/microwave, apple/orange, corvette/kia... Barter pair values could be further extrapolated as with currency crosses.
All that is needed is a classified matching system that accounts for haves and wants. sort of like craigslist for barter with a kelly blue book type repository of arcane barter pair values so sellers can evaluate potential crosses and offers. Additionally an auction approach to the classifieds could have participants bid using their "haves:" 10 kia for a corvette, or two apples for an orange.
Off the shelf internet technology can match haves and wants.
Mof, the only economists who mattered (at the time), were Greenspan, Summers, Rubin, Gramm, and a few others whose names don't immediately come to mind, who apparently contributed mightily to this situation, some of whom are still in seats of power, and now we're here. Hindsight is always 20-20. Bitching feels good, but it really doesn't help. Give it a rest, or gripe to someone who gives a shit. As for me, I think they're backpeddling furiously, trying to prevent a collapse that would make GD1 look like a cakewalk, and still likely to lose control. I'm hoping that doesn't happen , and trying not to throw any gasoline on the flames.
Robert Rubin - Executive at GS (1993 - 1995)
Laura D'Andrea Tyson - Academic (1995-1996)
Gene Sperling (1996-2000) -
Lawrence Lindsay - Harvard Graduated Economist and FRB member, fired for $200B cost of Iraq War (2000-2002)
Steven Freidman - Executive at GS (2002-2005)
Al Hubbard - Businessman (2005-2007)
Keith Hennessey - republican capital hill politico hack (2007-2008)
Larry Summers (2008-present)
Didn't keep track but seemed like all these people had Harvard ties.
Blackhalo
here's to Jim the Realtor
had some good laughs tossing together YouTube - Jim TV Realtor Stops Real Estate Californiacation and Goes Global ,
the piece looks simple but had a ton of edits in it to get the pacing and spatial sense right...
.... ps: no more Jim vids, the last one died big time on Youtube... the franchise is Kaput!
“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”
---Bloomberg.com
You can delude yourself about anything to rationalize greedy self-interest, but this takes the cake.
You can delude yourself about anything to rationalize greedy self-interest, but this takes the cake.
Echoes from the past. There was a sermon in the 1920's similar to this(I'll find it in a little while) , and J.D. Rockerfeller, "God gave me my money."
1 Currency
talk about tinfoil hat time!
I just checked my Youtube entries and all my star ratings across the board
are now 1/2 star!
....
the Yankees win! Great News!
Can't believe you guys are not biting on barter. This is potentially the most disruptive form of economic organization. This is the natural evolution of the current craigslist economy.
Where are the gold beetles? Gold would be king in a barter system. Also, what hell you think people will be forced to do in a currency collapse if not barter.
Managing the complexity of a functioning Haves and Wants marketplace is probably within the competency of tens of thousands of open source programmers. This is inevitable.
A great community bank that gave back to the community. How many banks REALLY lend to low income households? FBOP did. FBOP deserved better treatment
Yes, banks do make profits. Yes FBOP made profits in 2007 and 2008. But how many banks give away a third of their profits ($55 million) in donations to local charities and organizations? Park National Got Robbed
Our grand government tells banks to invest in Fannie and Freddie so they can make more loans for the rest of the public. When they take over Fannie and Freddie, main street banks lose and wall street banks win. Too big to fail yet again.
1 Currency wrote:
“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20...
.....
that;s a hell of a quote, almost on par with Boesky's Greed is Good from the Predators ball. Probably too late in the shooting
schedule to include it in Wall Street II. Pity!
He's an action junkie,...he can smell the fear starting to hit,..he's got to come back to the US. He might fool himself that he should be in LA, but he'll get drawn to the action.
From The Money Game(1967)
JP Morgan's preacher, Bishop Lawrence,"Godliness is in league with riches; it is only to the moral man that wealth comes. Material prosperity makes the nation sweeter, more joyous, more unselfish, more Christlike"
I currency ...
you're right , I thought long and hard about LA but 1) I'm too old to tackle that place again,
2) my material has never been right for Hollywood, 20 years ago I could've whored myself to write
a typical Hollywood script but now my sensibility is too locked in
3) the last time I had a really great financial year was when the Yanks last won, might be a harbinger
of the tide has turned... and maybe not!
....
sdtfs
yeah. I can smell the fear and it's coming from me! I over shot my stay here by 6 months.
need to get back and bicycle my stuff around and get some kind of work to stop the cash bleed...
I'm sure I have the smallest net worth on this board (might be neg... hate to look)
Man, I always had the fantasy of taking 30k and heading for South America. Shack up with some chick to learn the local language. Live the simple / hard life for a few years.
Was that what you did DCD? Cambodia sounds like a neat place to bail to... or Indonesia. Never been definitely on my list.
Consider this post a non commercial break from the Duke and Yogi Show that usually comes on this time of night.
When cash runs out possessions are liquidated. Unemployment and imploding credit depletes cash. Foreclosures and associated homelessness create people who have possessions and no where to put them.Those without cash will seek to trade what they have for what they need. People will definitely attempt barter every time when they have no currency. What are the other choices?
Sign of the times: I placed an ad for my old truck and only got calls from people looking to trade.
Barter is austerity.It is a natural form of human interaction. Much more so than faith based digital credits.
Nick Coppola Cage broke? he can always get a loan from Uncle Francis...
funny, he seems to have been working as of late, they were B grade scripts yes,
but each flick should have paid him 3 to 5 mil, esp that one based on Hell Rider
... maybe he had to take points upfront instead and I don't think any were hits...
DCD, Sorry, I have auditioned a few times myself and been found wanting, sadly. Married now to a good solid woman, though she may struggle a bit if things get bad.
Know what you mean about NYC. Great city. Real city, like London. Houston is just a sprawl really. Here's a story... I wound up doing a ticket dismissal class, and one of the dudes in there had a janitorial small business. And was thinking of opening an international office,... in Dallas. That about sums up Houston, though it's not been too bad to me really.
Gah, have a rat or something overhead. Thought it had gone, but working to get an animal control dude out in the morning. It's the little things that make life special, like not having an attic full of rats.
Jonathan,
actually, the big marriage was supposed to happen on Nov 27th, 2007 but I bailed on that date 8 weeks before
cause my old man would not attend and by extension mom... if I really wanted the marriage should've been there the
first time! the do-over was a pie in the face... later, her family politics intruded and I got what I deserved!
....
Cage had that one move he did in Face Off and repeated over and over again, the slow burn into a volcanic reaction
...
Saw a Black Widow on the porch the other night. We got plenty of wildlife here. And I think I just realized what the shrill calls are at night. Hordes of freaking rats.
"Yield curve up to 2.61. Some people think that indicates something."
....
sooner or later that thing has to stop moving up, no? with the Treasury doing 81 bil next week
maybe their is some resistance...
thought he was talking about the 10 yr (big jump)
I'll be back on later... after I hold a pistol to my head and finish
what I think is one of the wackiest stories about Central park (actually
it was finished in 2003 and I hope this is a more svelte flowing version of that one,
sharper and less verbose (right now it comes in at almost 16,000 words) duke
nothing matters because everything can matter
markets will rally for 2 more weeks, eg oil tease $100
then crash, because that's the way things have always been
that's the wisdom of dance
You tip the waitress by asking for her waitress code number, unless the restaurant's billing program is also plugged into the currency.
Pot dealers would take it to the extent the community wants a separate pool for anonymous (pirate) transactions. It's open-source, so there's no impediment. In my version every bar-codable transaction would be recorded and traceable by any user, but some anonymity can be rebuilt, such as for literature/porn/medicine/poker. No tax dodge, though.
At first, I would be afraid the bad PR would kill development: "new currency enables dope sales". Pot may be legal in more places soon though.
Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.) told [FDIC Chairwoman] Ms. Bair he wasn't "convinced that the FDIC isn't contributing to the awful problems that we're having" in his state, where 20 banks have failed in 2009. The banks "dot every 'i' and they cross every 't' and then the knock comes on the door on Friday afternoon," he told her.
Hands off, gubmint oppressors! Let zombie banks be zombie banks. They just want to be left to moan, wander about in slow circles, and await mouthfuls of soft, chewy bailout money. Geez, is that so hard to understand?
Good morning all. I'm trying to speed read and digest. This is worse than when I was in college with required volumes to read every night. You can't walk away from the computer without missing a lot it seems. I see the homebuyer tax credit was voted on extended and expanded although the expansion is half what they was proposed. Move ups closing costs, etc. won't be totally covered by it so, screw that. Its ALL folly anyway.
I also see Mr. Frank and crew moved up the CC regs. Its too late, CC companies have already done what surely should have been expected of them. What did Frank expect anyway? Can they really be that out of touch and stupid or are political pressers weighing?
I'll take Political pressures are weighing for $1,000, Alec.
Apologies if this has been posted previously. I'm GOBSMACKED! I wonder if CR got an invitation to DC? The fact that they are talking to financial bloggers speaks VOLUMES about the current situation.
interesting adventures
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
A Sit Down With Senior Treasury Officials - Part I
I received a mysterious email last week from the Treasury, inviting me to a discussion about the Administration's policies and reactions to the economic crisis. Although the timing sucked for me - it was the Monday following the weekend of my move out of NYC - it was too rare an opportunity to pass up.
Arriving at the Treasury, I quickly bumped into AccruedInterest along with John Jansen from Across the Curve. Michael Panzner soon joined us, before we were escorted to the proper conference room, where we found Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism, Steve Waldman of Interfluidity, Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution, and David Merkel of Aleph Blog fame. In all, there were 8 "bloggers" and a handful of senior Treasury officials, who shall remain nameless. Henceforth, all Treasury views will be attributed to "STO" - Senior Treasury Officials.
Good Morning Nanoo - I needed a second cup of to get through it all. On the Card Act, the Udall amendment to the unemployment insurance extension was not included in the final bill so the Senate has not done anything on it yet. Udall's bill is still in the Senate Banking Committee, but Dodd wants to drop his regulatory reform bill and have it debated and marked up in the two weeks the Senate is meeting in November, so it is unlikely the Card Act amendment gets addressed. Dodd has filed a bill to freeze rates, and that may get attached to a continuing resolution or something.
On the story CR posted, it is interesting that Park National was not troubled. Te FDIC used powers given to it by Congress to assess losses from failed banks against sister banks owned by the same holding company . Park Natonal refused and the FDIC took them over. And bank owners are calling up their Congressmen all the time they get into regulatory trouble. These calls were
For Juvenal.
California lawmakers pass historic water package - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee
The state house punted. The charade depends upon an $11b bond issue. Yeah right. JD may disagree (he is paid to have an opinion) but California does not have a water infrastructure problem. California has a developer subsidy and political power problem. As such you cannot expect a political solution. Small correction; CA does have some infrastructure upkeep issues but this bill doesn't address those. At that this "historic" "final solution" is neither. IMO it is political patronage to build new storage for a system that cen never reasonably be expected to reach "full" ever again. Nothing but a beard to conceal pork.
Pardon my laziness, I can't possibly read through everything because I'm old and slow...lol. But what took the oxygen out of the markets late yesterday?
I can't wait for more ARS fun that will be seen in CA and around the nation as it was widely practiced. There will surely be some class-action lawsuits that will result but as usual it probably will take a decade or more for investors to get any remedies (or for those the bonds were issued). I didn't buy but just another outraged no one. I know what it will mean....more taxes.
Thanks for the article, i'd seen it and have been following events in Sacramento.
It's hard to ascertain which is more screwed up in Big Gov here, the fiscal or water policy?
This is really a make or break year as far as the drought is concerned. We've got ourselves in a bit of a sticky wicket. You can print manna imaginary all you want, it's just pressing letters and numbers on a keyboard not unlike this one, bingo! financial crisis averted. (for now...)
But, unfortunately, I can't see how a water stimulus would work, as you can't conjure it up out of thin air, can you?
Seventy-five percent of a movie’s labor costs must be spent in the U.S. to be eligible, according to the IRS, and the deduction is generally capped at $15 million among all owners of the film. If principal photography commences before the deduction’s scheduled expiration this year, expenses may still be applied after the expiration date, the IRS said.
Consumers who missed out on the “Cash for Clunkers” program can still get a break if they buy a new car, said Kenneth Powell, a partner at the New York-based Berdon LLP an advisory and accounting firm. Sales taxes paid on a car, light truck, motor home or motorcycle purchased after Feb. 16 and before Jan. 1, 2010, are deductible up to $49,500 of the sales price per vehicle, according to the IRS.
In New York City, where the sales tax rate is 8.875 percent, that’s equal to about $4,313, for a Mercedes-Benz E- class 2010 sedan with a starting list price of $48,600, according to the company’s Web site.
The tax break phases out for single filers with adjusted gross income between $125,000 and $135,000 and between $250,000 to $260,000 for joint filers. There’s no limit on the number of vehicles, said IRS spokesman Eric Smith.
Oh yeah, this will end well.
of course they are repeating mistakes form the s&l crisis
sheesh that was way back in the 80s...who remembers back that far
Nemo wrote:
This has already ended well for some
Like TEOTWAWKI well or just "Depression for the Common Man" well?
broward wrote:
It made my plans for traveling abroad last Fall academic so in some ways, yes.
This is the political version of "extend and pretend."
Although I do not understand what the FDIC's hurry is. As Sheila herself said in her video, "In short, we cannot run out of money."
Just think of the DIF as the second stimulus.
mock turtle wrote:
Bueller? Bueller?
Nemo wrote:
Keating 5? Who's turn was it to keep an eye on McCain?
"Go easy"? Not gonna happen. This is the new FDIC. No margin for error.
Nemo wrote:
Maybe she started believing in her own press trying to leave a modern mark on the surroundings like Sherman's March To The Sea. 150 years earlier?
"Politicians are putting pressure on regulators to go easy on small community banks across the U.S. ..."
Echos of don't close down my contributor, I mean, Dealership...
mccain and greenspan (the two repubs involved) were not alone
just to keep our recollections straight there were 3 or 4 more and they were dems
Continuing our series "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
Goldman benefits from trading bonanza
Traders at Goldman Sachs recorded only one daily loss in the third quarter, highlighting the trading bonanza sweeping Wall Street as central banks continue to pump billions of dollars into the financial system.
The performance – revealed on Wednesday in a regulatory filing – compares with two losing trading days in the previous quarter and confirms that the authorities’ drive to revive markets after the crisis is yielding huge windfalls for some banks.
Before the crisis, banks regularly recorded trading losses on several days in a quarter.
Goldman made more than $100m in profits on 36 of the 65 days in the three months to September and recorded more than $50m in profit on more than eight out of 10 trading days, the filing shows.
...
Goldman’s ability to reap large profits – its trading operations had net income of $6bn during the third quarter – without ramping up risk underlines the changing nature of trading on Wall Street.
...
Trading in the US fixed-income market this year has been dominated by the Federal Reserve, which recently finished buying a planned $300bn in Treasury debt, and is on track to complete buying $1,250bn of mortgage securities by the end of March. These purchases have helped keep market rates low and also normalised the relationship between government bonds and other fixed-income securities.
Dealers say banks have made big profits by the timing of Fed purchases of government debt and subsequent Treasury debt sales, and by betting that the relationship between Treasury bonds and other fixed-income securities would normalise.
Have you thanked your government yet?
mock turtle wrote:
Are they still in office?
YouTube - BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | William K. Black | PBS
MrM - I would, but I don't have to go right now.
I don't want to sound too cynical, but economic efficiency is a secondary goal for Sheila Bair and most of the other regulators and the members of Congress. So, just like the extension and expansion of the home buyers' credit, expect lots of waste as long as it funnels money to political contributors and to voters.
OT:
I have mixed feelings about this arrangement. JP shouldn't have been able to take Jefferson County to the cleaners like it did, but Jefferson County shouldn't get a free pass from corrupt politicians selling its own citizens down the river that horribly...
.
Not enough winners and not enough losing...
patientrenter (profile) wrote on Wed, 11/4/2009 - 10:33 pm
I don't want to sound too cynical, but economic efficiency is a secondary goal for Sheila Bair and most of the other regulators and the members of Congress. So, just like the extension and expansion of the home buyers' credit, expect lots of waste as long as it funnels money to political contributors and to voters.
You call it waste... I call it one of the only viable business models we have left
"The sooner the FDIC completes the process of closing failed banks, the better for the remaining banks and the economy."
Does this apply to Citi, BAC, WFC, and JPM as well?
Danny Davis, Roland Burris, and Bobby Rush will never appear on "Are you smarter than a fourth grader"
Danny Davis is my Congressman! Glad to see he's helping us little guys out...
Actually, I'm a little surprised he had time in between his lobbyist-paid trips to call up regulators and try to push them around. Hmm. Maybe he called from the plane.
sheila said ,....we cant run out of money, we are the government
.....
sorry to break it to ya sheila but congress repealed executive order 11110 right after right wing extremists killed kennedy
when you run out of money the gove has to either create debt or go hat in hand to the federal reserve
no, the 19 Lords of Doom (
) are protected by a shroud of eternal darkness
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
By the one bank that binds them all...
.
The Fed
mock turtle wrote:
But they get their collateral from the Treasury...
One ring to rule them all,
One ring to unwind them
blackhalo
none of the dems are still in office....i think (guess) john glenn from ohio was the last to leave
You're confusing Saruman with Sauron.
but economic efficiency is a secondary goal for Sheila Bair and most of the other regulators and the members of Congress.
where would you put the limit to "economic efficiency"?
The fact that the FDIC is closing down banks clearly demonstrates that $700 billion in TARP money just wasn't enough. That's barely enough to pay for a couple of years' bonuses at Goldman. If our elected officials really cared about America they would have authorized at least $700 trillion for TARP, and they would stop with all the bothersome inquiries about auditing the Fed and so forth. But it's not too late for Congress to fully fund the Obama-Geithner No Banker Left Behind recovery plan. Yes We Can.
One Phrase: End of Quantitative Easing
Seems to have made the entire world quiver with fear.
I have no fear, for I will now begin to participate more fully in the newly trademarked Crush Your Creditor
modern experience.
Next up, JPM- I got something special for Jamie D- an offer he can refuse that might just cost him some money;-}
Someday this war's gonna end...
albrt wrote:
Aww, screw it. Let's just give the bankers their Jubilee and be done with it. Turn over all of your liabilities to Uncle Sam--including your federal tax liabilities--and start over. Everyone wins!
The fact that the Chicago Tribune had to explain that Danny Davis is a Congressman in Chicago should give you an idea of how much time he dedicates to his constituents.
Read and weep.
Extending UI is the right thing to do, but why can't the Congress demand that people who get these extra 1.5 years of unemployment benefits do at least some community service???
Senate Approves More Jobless Benefits
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to offer up to 20 more weeks of unemployment benefits to those who have been out of work a long time, after weeks of delay in which hundreds of thousands of Americans exhausted their government aid.
The measure will increase to 99 weeks, or nearly two years, the maximum length of time that a jobless worker can get benefits in some states.
As early as Thursday, the House is expected to approve the Senate version, which differs from the measure it passed six weeks ago, so the legislation can be signed into law by President Obama.
but why can't the Congress demand that people who get these extra 1.5 years of unemployment benefits do at least some community service???
the obvious answer is that the liabilities exceed the benefits ~
MrM wrote:
Because in the real world, it isn't UI. It is welfare. Welfare usually means "I give you stuff and you won't burn down my government." Community service doesn't fit in that mold.
Burning down our government would be a community service these days.
yagij wrote:
Did not quite work out yesterday, did it?
The lesson is - give more, and some of it in scalps
Besides, community service takes jobs from working Americans.
TJ and The Bear wrote:
Again, doesn't fit the mold
Extra UE will help some folks. For most of us, it simply isn't enough money. Only problem is that there aren't any jobs. So, I and others are going back to school. This makes us ineligible for UE. I thought I would be able to work IT the rest of my life. I was wrong.
barfly wrote:
Or cleaning up highways from inmates and high school students.
MrM wrote:
Did we burn down a government, and I missed it? I'm sure the Commentariat would've covered it if it had happened.
About the only nice thing about community service is that people would recognize how white and middle class this recession is.
Tired of actually typing out the entire phrase our leaders have merely resorted to "Extend...
"Welfare" also usually means that THEY get it, and WE don't.
badger wrote:
You mean Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans are still employed?! Guess it is time we all headed to Houston,
lA, Oakland, and Detroit!
ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:
Economics is the religion of the corporation, made in the image of the corporation, with the liability free corporation as god and trinity.
.
....Ahemmm...........(cough, cough)........it wasn't THAT far back - even for a past drug addled, booze wracked body such as the one I own, thank you......
ozajh wrote:
Then why do we call it WElfare and not THEYlfare?
yagij wrote:
The government (=the Administration) surely got burned yesterday
"at least some community service"
Dude, I don't think you have the caste system straight. Community service is for probationers. It goes like this:
New York Bankers
Junior New York bankers
Hedge Fund Operators
Big New York bank employees not yet mentioned
Charlotte NC Bankers
Presidents
Other Big Bankers
Treasury Secretaries
Other Junior Big Bankers
Federal Reserve Board Members
Anyone who gets a bank bonus
Big lobbyists
Congresspeople
Smaller lobbyists
Governors
The FDIC
Small bankers
Really small lobbyists
Other politicians
Everyone else except the unemployed and people in the criminal justice system
The unemployed
Probationers
Prisoners
I cancelled the Tribune a few years ago. It went all Liberal, all the time. I heard they lost other readers too. Now they filed for bankrupcy.
The racists and closet racists expect that and think that is where all their money is going.
Rob Dawg wrote:
Sounds like we need an icon...
The government (=the Administration) surely got burned yesterday
I'm sure they got the wake-up call ~
I used to pay $3.00 for the Sun Trib at the store since I couldn't get a subscription way up north here. The paper just fell apart in Feb-ish.
barfly wrote:
Mr. President, your 6:00 a.m. teabagging has arrived. Shall I send her up?
- No, tell Ms. Bair that I'm sleeping in, and I should be ready by 7:00a.
Gold: This is a giant high level trap for the ignorant traders and newbies, those who are slow to act who just got in. I'm exiting the entirety of the 50% unsold position of the portion of gold I hold for trading purposes. 1085++ and I'm gone. That's about 9-10% in 2 months, unleveraged. When it cracks, I'll reposition. It's someone else's bag, now.
I yet see gold at $6000, but that's 4 yrs from now. And much higher gold on its way. Positional positions stay on. Short term trading, now flat.
As to what others do, I never allow anyone else's opinion not vetted and solid with years of public statements, influence me whatsoever.
Off topic from long time lurker:
This site seems particularly optimistic. Any comments? (noob?)
Mortgage Rates & Mortgage Broker News in Canada
Especially:
The Good News About Cheap Money
Slumdog, I thought you were holding half for the ride on up. What made you change your mind?
jwhitland wrote:
2 Words: Mortgage Brokers.
to stay in that trade from what I see. Either too much 
or too dishonest for the public good. 
.
You have to be OD'ing on
MrM wrote:
Link?
It's now $1 per week for 3 day-a-week delivery. I subscribe for the Sunday coupons and the Wednesday food ads. The rest of the paper goes straight to the recycling bin. That paper is a train wreck of epic proportions. Not that the Sun Times is any better.
"I never allow anyone else's opinion not vetted and solid with years of public statements, influence me whatsoever."
Good point.
Ignore.
Speaking of
:
Ireland still on track for a meltdown in 2010?
1 Question... Would you take this bet?
I'm lookin' to borrow money and place it all in gold, and then surrender the gold as collateral. I'll pay interest at 3% with an offset. I'll give the lender 25% of the rise in the market price offsetting the 3% simple interest. I assume all the risk. The amount to be borrowed is 7 figures. It's like a futures trade, but the physical is acquired. I don't trust GLD or the futures market to perform when the crunch is in. I can't determine when the crunch will be and it's a risk I won't accept. The Hunts' taught the lesson to everyone else. Take it, hold it, and screw off to everyone else.
What's the flaw besides the fact that risk is being taken?
As an aside, I've been trying to get the lender into gold for the past 4 years, unsuccessfully; so this is the carrot I'm dangling.
As I believe gold will go to 1600-1800 in 2010, I consider this risk to be worth the payoff. Entry will be after the pigs now at the trough have their ears clipped, which will occur, and I'll wait for that.
MrM wrote:
UE seems to be kind of low in the scheme of things in comparison to the mountains of liabilities taken on by the Gov and 0% loans going out to the TBTF. What do we get in return from them in exchange? Besides the incessant bitching about any new regulation or consumer protections, of course.
Banks Discover Consumer Protection Too Big to Fail (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
I believe that in my comments about TARP for banks too small to fail
I touched on this issue... I pointed to the pressure that was brought to bear
on Congress in the early 80s to change the rules that dealt with what an S&L
could have in its portfolio... remember, once they de-regulated passbook savings
rate that gave S&Ls a 50 basis point advantage they were effectively dead...
I went on to say that all small banks nationwide should use that playbook
since 'all politics is local' and they can leverage that in ways the big faceless
banks can not...
Politicians only doing what they know how to do 'extend and pretend'
Sickening .... yes!
yagij wrote:
A boot and a can?
Comment taken from NakedCapitalism:
barfly, the breakaway gap is real, at around 1045. It's 10 bucks. That's large. 90% + of the time, it gets filled. Today's trading is what I call the "lure". It's so stable and attractive to get into now what seems like reasonably priced gold. I have seen that pattern over and over. Yes, sometimes, it breaks to the upside; most of the time, it tarries long enough to allow all who want on to get on. A drop of $50 is highly probable. I'll wait this one out. My entry was $990-995. The money at this point is God's money, not mine. If it happens, it belongs to the next person, not me. That's kewl. I don't lose on my trades. I either win or breakeven. I can't tolerate loss. I won't sacrifice profit because I want more. I see risk in the current market set up; so, I left.
Further, I foresaw this move and acted on it 2 months ago. So, as it comes to an end, and the probabilities in my mind shift, I release from what I thought would happen, take what I said I expected, 10%, and leave the rest to those who understand something I don't. I don't trust any advice but my own. Others may ratify it, but I don't follow anyone.
"I wonder if there has ever been a society so badly deluded as ours"....James Howard Kunstler
I love this quote because it is so true
Slumdog - completely fascinating, my man. Please keep on posting, as you see fit. Between you and rich, it's a real education.
Slumdog
wrote: The Hunts' taught the lesson to everyone else. Take it, hold it, and screw off to everyone else.
if memory serves for all their brilliance they still got screwed when I think it was Englehard
was able to change the delivery terms of a contract otherwise they would have cornered the market...
the gov/exchange changed the rules in the middle of the game
None of us here are big enough to influence the market, Duke.
There is one thought I don't follow, but which naws at me all the time, and that's what Sinclair said... assets in one country, owned by a corp in a 2nd country, and stock held in a 3rd country. He has been consistently concerned about nationalization of his golden asset. I've explored it. It's easy to do via Canada, to get a 2nd step away, and all this being totally legal, too. Illegal stuff is above my paygrade.
And, yes, the Govt changed the rules... imo totally illegally. That was another lesson. The Govt is self serving. It's happening now as they save the Primary Dealers, even though they're all insolvent and should be bankrupted. The Govt is dangerous to the common working man.
albrt
youve got quite the list halfway up for people youd recommend for "community service" (garbage collection along the hwy etc)
i like the list
but could i ask that we take a page from mao and the red guard of china?
instead of community service
we send these miscreants to "re-education prisons" i mean camps
we wake their sorry asses up at 5am
calisthenics
readings from chairman obamas little blue book
breakfast of gruel and potatoes and mashed potatoes with a side order of chips
then 5 hours of back breaking manual labor
an hour of the little blue book
lunch of potatoes, gruel, mashed potatoes and a side order of chips
much more labor and blue book and potatoes and on and on for a year or two
ok?
Imagine if we did not have the new accounting rules?
How many more banks would the FDIC be closing? that's really the question to ask.
mock turtle wrote:
.
I think we called that "boot camp"......
The Govt is dangerous to the common working man.
so that's why they just extended the unemployment benefits. Not to take away from your larger thesis. I'm still a fan.
Duke, you saw what happened when it came to TARP time, just within the past year. Scum like NPR as well as every major news network ignored and discounted the strident and compelling ears of those who wanted to reconstitute the banks. The problem was and is the cheaters are also the Primary Dealers... as in SYSTEMIC in the phrase, SYSTEMIC RISK. It would mean the collapse of the financing arm of the Treasury. I know of no solution for this. It just is. So, the response from the USG is to thrash around and kill everything except for their lifeline to debt, the Primary Dealers. This was so from day one and was so noted by me and others.
After TARP, the concept of a line called morality was proven to be of no meaning. End of discussion... Turn to self preservation. And I did that now 8 years ago when I saw this coming. The TARP to me was the saddest political day of my adult life; it was a severe body blow to the Constitution. I refuse to allow that to continue, and I'm powerless to do anything about it... save protect my own economic ass.
say about 9 years ago I noticed a dearth of Irish bartenders in NYC, if you can imagine that,
now I know why: A two parent ,two child family on social welfare are entitled to collect in excess of 37,000 euros tax free.
......
on a further note it's nice to be ahead of the curve for once, your local banks tend to be more active in
the community, sponsoring Little League and that sort of stuff... it's harder for the big banks to do this
for obvious reasons (there no Mitch and Murray breathing down the necks of the community banks)...
I would even go out on a limb here and say 1 dollar of campaign contribution locally is worth 5 on the state
or 10 on the national level...
GM plans 10,000 job cuts at Opel
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
......sounds pretty familiar...........black swan?
Japan Spirals into Bankruptcy?
AverageJovestor wrote:
I think the number remaining solvent would be easier to grasp.
Thx for the post, BSRanch. This is a wow.
mp
from a previous thread:
thanks for that YouTube link to Granny Firing a Machine Gun, actually found it about 6 months ago
and I think even posted it once very late night... very funny... liked here 'spray and pray' approach...
Slumdog wrote:
That's not my recollection of events from that time period.
I trust you've watched and listened to the Bill Moyers Journal segment that MrM linked above, as well as the segments that preceded and followed that one from April regarding the bankster's fraud.
The word is out there. The important question is how many are listening.
Calling everyone "scum" doesn't accomplish much of anything.
It is criminally negligent that rating agencies are not blowing the whistle on this..
and they get paid exactly how?
Calling everyone "scum" doesn't accomplish much of anything.
I have to agree here, Slumdog. Not exactly the non-partisan language I would expect from you.
Links?
Democrats in Congress See Election as Giving New Urgency to Their Agenda - NY Times
As they assessed the results, Democratic lawmakers and party strategists said their judgment was that voters remained very uneasy about the economy and did not see Democrats producing on the health, energy and national security changes they promised when voters swept them to power only a year ago.
“Most of us ran on that,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia and president of the party’s freshman class. “We must deliver. I need to give Democrats something to be excited about.”
- NY Times
Republican Wins May Make Democrats Cautious on Obama Agenda - Bloomberg.com
Chicago Dude wrote:
Why would the constituents care - in Chicago the aldermen are more powerful than congressmen & senators any day.
I'm back. Sorry for the freakout awhile ago.
I think I'm fine now.
All better.
MrM, I realize Blackhalo asked for links, but MSM analysis of election results is questionable at best.
Governors don't have much influence on national policy, if any at all.
There were two Congressional races. NY swapped a Republican for a Democrat and CA swapped a conservative Democrat for a liberal Democrat.
That's what will count when the " health, energy and national security changes they promised " come up for votes.
I don't mind a small amount of trading chatter (and kinda miss popeye) but this is puffery.
-yuan (aka squeezed)
volker, you got to get yourself that double-strength tinfoil, like those cheap turkey roasting pans. Works for me.
Chicago politics seems to give a whole new meaning for "professional politician". I was appalled when locally a tile-man had to pay a $2K bribe to get a town job..........I'd probably be amazed at the scope of sleaze in Chicago.
Volker, I think that the economy, the politics, and the entire state of the country will sometimes induce temporary insanity.
Now, get in there and keep commenting, it helps to vent the spleen about how helpless we are as the situation rapidly changes.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Black Star Ranch wrote:
They say all politics is local.
I know all sleaze is local.
Black Star Ranch wrote:
I had to read this several times before I realized it wasn't worth the money. Prior to that, I was thinking, two large, I dunno, what's so bad about that? Given the proper level of talent. Then I 'saw' it was a town job, not what I was thinking.
MrM, I realize Blackhalo asked for links, but MSM analysis of election results is questionable at best.
Governors don't have much influence on national policy, if any at all.
a) Perception influences the reality (one can hate MSM but one can't deny its power)
b) Obama did invest his own time and prestige in supporting Corzine, who still lost
I realize all the caveats, but I believe the Administration has taken notice
Citizen AllenM wrote:
jeepers, it feels good to be wanted
one step at a time with that change shit
don't make any unexpected fast moves
Slumdog,
my comments were not based on any idea I have any influence but rather on the fact that it's
the only time I've been right in '09 in this arena... tote up the score when you can!
as for Primary Dealers and US Gov reminds me of
this one vid mash of The International with Clive Owen where this Italian industrialist is
explaining the international banking system to Clive and Naomi Watts... love the way he says
"Slaves to Debt" - that line alone is worth the watch...
YouTube - Clive Owen & Naomi Watts Learns the Horrors of Goldman Banking 'The International' 其言糞土也
MrM wrote:
I hope the Administration has taken notice.
Obama does have to understand he is not the anointed one
But I saw a
Black Star Ranch wrote:
Ironically the very disaster the article predicts is what would save them - a currency crisis. The yen goes back to 200 or so to the dollar and their export mfg market gets healthy pretty fast.
Optimistic at this point seems to be keeping our collective head above water. I'm losing optimism.
Head under water
And they tell me to breathe easy for a while
The breathing gets harder, even I know that
YouTube -
Black Star Ranch wrote:
The patronage is worse yet - if you work for the city you probably have to deliver votes for the machine - its an undocumented part of the job description.
I realized my tinfoil went bad
When all the thoughts that I had
Started to seem
Like peaches and cream
And how government made me feel glad.
dryfly wrote:
I guess this is one of those examples of the sense of entitlement we Americans are possessed of.
Most logical way a big dog exercises dominion is on the big dog's terms. And he don't care if the two of them together are 50% of world GDP, we gonna shrink the dollar to a new world parity and anyone don't like it can suck it.
sorry, all...
here's a much better 'Slaves to Debt' vid mash-up where Bernanke's copter opens it and Geithner makes
an appearance, so does the Debt Monkey and it closes with O being chased by a plane ...
I should also say it go almost 6000 hits in about 10 days, very unusual for this kind of material!!
YouTube - Obama Calls Kanye West JACKASS & Spike Jonze Calls Obama Cocky & Xavier Bardem Agrees
Yeah slumdog,
Calling the media or whoever 'scum' is not very polite as we enter the worst Depression of All Time. You have to mind your manners in more polite discussion groups and refrain from such emotionalism.
Duke of Con Dao wrote:
Duke of Con, hi. One day, and that day may never come, I may once again be certain of myself to the extent I had a craving need to tell others how absolutely fabulous whatever I do, is.
If things get really bad, slumdog, just watch something that has some 'decadent escapism' values and just remember the Law of Attraction. If gold shots way up in a Crash...where will you sell it safely and locally if you need some 'spending' (devalued) cash?
where will you sell it safely and locally if you need some 'spending' (devalued) cash?
and who would trade you anything truly valuable for mere gold?
Slumdog used to take some heat over at Mish from their resident 'gatekeeper' and 'Crash spinmeister'...Black Swan...
volker the viking wrote:
I would agree with you EXCEPT as I've said here a thousand times... we are STILL importing WAY MORE than we export...its not like we are going to run a surplus anytime soon... They are in effect working for FREE... worthless paper they then have to recycle back via US treasury buys.
It blows my mind that 'we' are the 'bad guys' for allowing our currency to depreciate which results in our slaves actually getting 'paid'.
[PLONK - bangs head on table]
People will be able to trade gold for sex for example. But better to have a bunch of tenth ounce coins for that unless you getting into the expensive stuff.
YouTube - Rollover 1981... world economic collapse
merchants of fear wrote:
Aural sex?
merchants of fear wrote:
exactly, and when it came to resurrecting the system which displaces, the rulers will have the gold
the plebes will have silver
and the peons will use copper
and while we at it, barter will be a way of life
best be getting good at it
Glod is a wonderous thing,
I mean, aside from its "bling".
There's no and's, if's, or but's,
The collectors go nuts
For the safety they think it can bring.
"Politicians Pressuring Regulators on Banks"
Holy frickin' shite! You can GO SLOWER than Shitthead BLiar and the FDIC! And I thought glaciation was slow.
slumdog
your accusation of npr being scum shows an absence of information and unfounded prejudice against public radio
npr stations have more than a few programs that report economic and business news
below is the list of stories just during the week of october 13-17 when some of the most uproarious debates about proposed tarp legislation occurred around the country
this is just one week one program called "marketplace"
this american life and other programs on NPR were banging away on the issue of tarp at the same time
i challenge you to document a news source that even comes close to providing the in depth coverage of business and economic issues that npr does . .
here are the story summaries and the link so you can research on your own is
Marketplace from American Public Media | Episode Index
The U.S. Treasury
What's in the bailout package now
Having the government buy stakes in banks as part of the $700 billion-plus bailout program is a significant change financially and ideologically. Kai Ryssdal asks economist Robert Litan how this is going to work.
Dollar bills pass through printing press
A rescue package that's 'unlimited'
The Fed is leading an extraordinary push to restore liquidity in the world financial markets by offering "unlimited" greenback funds in auctions. So, does that mean the sky's the limit? Bob Moon finds out.
French President Sarkozy and Britain PM Brown
European plan puts cash in banks
Call it the bailout heard round the world. After a weekend of meetings, France, England, Germany and other European countries unveiled their rescue plan: pump cash, cash and more cash directly into banks. Stacey Vanek-Smith takes a look.
interest rates paper
Credit markets want to see the money
Have the financial rescue plans done anything yet to encourage banks to start lending again? So far, the major credit benchmarks aren't moving much. Senior business correspondent Bob Moon reports.
Giving money
The strings attached to cash infusions
The idea of having the Treasury Department take stakes in selected banks is to provide them with cash to start making loans again, not to keep it to themselves. Janet Babin wonders if banks will agree to that.
Now, the shipping news is bad
The latest indication of global economic slowdown comes from something called the Baltic Dry Index. It tracks the price of hauling commodities like oil and grain. Those prices are at the lowest point in five years. Jeremy Hobson reports.
Corn cob held in a cornfield.
Can cheap commodities be a bad thing?
With oil prices slipping below $75, prices for corn, gold and other commodities are also down. That's good news for consumers, but what about the overall economy? Will it spark inflation? Nancy Marshall Genzer has answers.
Dollar bills at Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Where's this bailout cash coming from?
The Fed soon starts lending directly to corporations, plus it's pledged unlimited dollars to foreign central banks. So, just how much is this gonna cost, and where's the Fed getting the money? Steve Henn finds out.
Trader calming watching market board
Can bailouts keep panic at bay?
The bailout plans from the U.S. and other countries do seem to be calming nerves in the financial sectors at least a little bit. Kai Ryssdal asks MIT economist Simon Johnson if this is the beginning of the end.
Checking the state of the auto industry
Reports say GM and Chrysler have stepped up merger talks, with GM running out of cash. Toyota, on the other hand, is promoting a new zero-financing initiative for 11 models. Ashley Milne-Tyte has more.
An oil rig off the coast of Nigeria
Don't get too used to lower gas prices
The recent drop in oil prices might have us smiling at the pump now, but those lower prices could head back up. OPEC is expected to cut production during an emergency meeting next week. Nancy Marshall Genzer has more.
Definition of investiment in dictionary
A requiem for big investment banks
Investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers have been major casualties of the financial crisis. With investors skeptical about risk, is the investment banking model dead? London Bureau Chief Stephen Beard reports.
Wall Street sign
Week on Wall Street
Are we in a recession? A slowdown? A rebalancing? What happens next? Kai Ryssdal asks Mike Mandel, writer for BusinessWeek, and Johs Worsoe, senior executive vp, global markets, for Union Bank, for their thoughts.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Looking back to Bretton Woods
President Bush will meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at Camp David. It's not likely to lead to a worldwide summit because the president is in lame duck status. But Jeremy Hobson reports on something that might come up.
I haven't met a rich man yet that made his fortune in gold. Granted I've only known half dozen people or so that have accumulated over a million in assets, but none of them made mention of it.
barfly wrote:
Ah, the tinfoil helmet upgrade...
I think the glod pumping is predicated on there never being wealth created again. It's the end of the world as we know it for many.
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Good thing they don't have to think about the unfunded liabilities...
mock,
I had a friend on the Left who tried to get me to listen to NPR for years and claimed it was very informative...so I tried it a few times and the news host sounded like he was on some kind of opiate he sounded so mellow and laid back plus at the time there was a story on about some insignificant consumer issue (don't remember what) about the time of the TARP bailout I think...do they do hard hitting stuff like investigating _______________ or ______________. Fill in the blank with numerous entities that have enabled this mess.
badger wrote:
MIght not make your fortune, buy might help you keep it.
" like those cheap turkey roasting pans.
Ah, the tinfoil helmet upgrade... "
Barely an adequate emergency defense system my friend...although the turkey drippings oozing down the temples, does offer a quick snack, and a unique scent.
A plausible scenario
YouTube - Rollover 1981... world economic collapse
just caught the NAR tv spot
they say so many out of ten economists agree that home prices will go up in the next five years
crisis over
sportsfan wrote:
But that does not sell newspapers. (R) being in a tight spot, and seeming to lack much of a national vision, have to make the most out of what victories they can get.
Oxtail wrote:
Nor does anyone - the 'funding' itself doesn't matter - it isn't the problem... its what people expect to buy & consume using that funding that will be the show stopper. That is if the resources aren't there how much money there is to 'pay for it' is meaningless - you can't eat the money.
mock,
Isn't NPR and PBS public television funded by corporations through grants and donations?
merchants of fear wrote:
as well as loyal listeners/viewers everywhere
Damn you Red Cross!
And Ford Foundation!
8 out of 10!!
As promised a report on Dark Pools, Flash Orders, High Frequency Trading and other Market Structure Issues
Senator Kaufman was a single panel member and talked about how he became interested in this after the SEC repealed the uptick rule. Among his comments he mentioned his concern that technology has overtaken the ability of the SEC to regulate the markets to some extent and believes that the repeal of he uptick rule had a lot to do with the Lehman and Bear Stearns failures. He also seemed to imply that the markets should exist such that long term investors can save money and have a golden retirement. He was followed by a people representing the SEC, the trader association, folks who are involved in market routing, NASDAQ person, and one guy who claimed to be unbiased and did seem a bit unbiased. Because of the audio it was hard for me to triangulate who was saying what. I'll take the items topic-based rather than time-based as the question/discussion was cut off somtimes by the time-limit.
Dark Pools
There was discussion on dark pools and their transparency and how much of the market they make (I think its grown from 1% to 10% over the past 5 years?). There was some general agreement that dark pools are used by institutions to somewhat hide large orders so that the market can't use that information. One of the benefits of the dark pool is that the parties to a trade are anonymous, I believe the SEC has a proposed rule to unmask the anonymity and identify to the tape which pool a trade came from. Dark pools are required to have their trades recorded on the tape, but they don't have to tell the identity of the traders. If this rule were to happen (sounded like some institutions were against), it might simply set people back to calling up a "specialist" to take place in these large orders (100,000 shares). I know very little about trading, but what troubled me about the discussion was that as far as pre-trade investing; a small-time trader has to put his order out there pre-trade (he could do a market order, I suppose). However, everyone seemed like it was okay for a large institution (mutual fund/pension fund) to hide this pre-trade information from coming to the market, thus hiding the amount of liquidity that is out there. It's the larger traders who will move the market more than the smaller traders... but understandable why they don't want to reveal themselves as in the process of selling/buying a large block of shares.
Additionally there does seem to appear to be a lack of transparency from the dark pools. One of the person routing trades mentioned that his concern was about what happens to the order when it goes into a dark pool or goes out. It sounded like they tried to get information on the routing of the order from the dark pool, but were blocked by the dark pools due to some "proprietary, legal, confidential" agreements or something. Not sure why he mentioned this... wouldn't you simply stop trading with a dark pool if they were not disclosing what happened to your trades?
Flash Orders
Didn't get a lot of discussion that I can remember. Someone in talking about them mentioned that flash orders were a way to get some transparency and information out of the dark pools, and by using a flash order it was a way to interrigate various dark pools and trading markets/
High Frequency Trading
Lots of agreement from the trader folk that high frequency traders are simply the new "market makers".. There was some concern from the SEC that high frequency trading could be abused to generate momentum for a position and may need some regulation.
Throughout the meeting it seemed like the SEC was preaching about a balance between liquidity and transparency and fairness, especially in regards to avoiding a two-tiered market. The traders and their advocates all seemed to love to talk about how much liquidity is in the market and how great it is; but didn't seem to give a lot of talk about the transparency and fairness aspects (understandable). The unbiased person seemed to indicate there could be room for more transparency in regards to the market.
One of the institutional traders said his job is to trade against the high frequency traders, and if he can tell that they have sniffed out one of his orders he'll cancel the order. When asked about "why not call the SEC?" or something he made a great comment about being suspicious of all the counterparties to his trades and he'd be on the phone with the SEC all day.
One of the Senators mentioned the arrest of the russian guy (forgot the name, wow thats out of the news fast?) accused of stealing GS high frequency trading code. His concern was that there is a potential national security issue (I'll touch more on this with sponsered access).
Co-Location
Co location was briefly touched upon. Sounded like some of the people were advocating co-location was okay, as long as everyone was allowed the oppurtunity to co-located on similar terms. One of the panel members downplayed it... saying the information is traveling at the speed of light and there's not much time difference between co-location and across the street.
(cont. later)
"you can't eat the money."
Nope, but you can use it as kindling for the fire pit so's you can roast a squirrel. Gots ta be positive, I always say.
volker
not sure what you were trying to say about me but I thought that since the movie called The International took time to explain
what banking is all about on the international level whether it's a pure fantasy or not it will influence maybe a million people
or two people, the ones that saw it in theatres and the presumably greater video audience... the once scene I lifted to use in my vid will have more influence than anything CR does on his blog for the next two years. Bill is no match for Clive Owen.
Remember JFK by Stone? it had a tremendous impact on how that assassination is viewed today, not say by the intelligentsia but
by Joe6Pack and kids...
Oxtail wrote:
and they say tv don't work
Bob Dobbs wrote:
About 5 years ago, I tried to convince a wealthy gentleman I know to buy gold, to take about $1 million cash out of various CDs and such and buy at $444. He didn't. He sat on his cash and his CRE and, while he certainly is very well off, he could have been better off.
(But then I'm not sure that even matters once one is set for life.)
Comrade Misean is Dope wrote:
That is an upgrade to the tuna salad insulation featured in the tin foil hat version...
yep that is true,i tell them no its the bankers, the big banks.the federal reserve bank,it the treasury. dont think it work, it doesnt make sense to them.it is hard to look down on someone you have taught to look up to.
I heard it on the radio on Sunday.
Well, that explains why Central Pacific Bank Ticker: (CPF) with heavy losses even after getting TARP funds still is not on the troubled bank list.
Senator Inouye (HI, Dem) has a good portion of his personnel wealth attached to it.
CPB got TARP money after Inouye call - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):
Thanks for the reports, YLSP. Very informative.
merchants of fear wrote:
To an embarrassingly larger extent lately. But main core of funding ~60% come from viewers/listeners.
The thing about the 'tinfoil' sites owned by bigger media fish maybe is the stories are entertaining the way history channel is or nat geo...there's a certain hypnotic repetetiveness to the programming...it lulls you into a gentle fear state while being interesting and mis-informative.
The Obama birth certificate stories really scare the crap out of ya...the Illuminati stories that are run by the same sites year after year after year that you'd think they'd change the 'story line' once in a while...just to change up the programming...must be a method to the tinfoil sites,,,they stay in business as their audiences grow and the links stay the same over the years...so it's a network that works together and grows in ad sales...
Oxtail wrote:
I guess 4 out of 5 sounded too much like dentists.
Sponsored Access
The one issue that had consensus was sponsored access. This is firms or non-firms having direct access to the markets. When this occurs sometimes there are pre-trade mechanisms that are bypassed. It sounded like there was a concern a bad actor with sponsored access and some type of high frequency trading algorithm like Goldman's code could propose a systematic risk if it was in the wrong hands. This was obliquely mentioned... but in my mind it would be like a bad actor having sponsored access and moving the markets in a major way through trading... advertising the ability to sell things they didn't have and buy things with money that doesn't exist?
The one thing I wished the Senators had done is follow up on all of the issues that Kaufman brought up. Why not ask them, "did the uptick rule contribute to Lehman and Bear Stearns going down?", and the elephant in the room like "do you think the markets should be biased towards the long term investor?"
That's it...
merchants of fear
yep you are correct
listener supported radio, plus
foundations and non profits
corporations donate too
and they used to get a lot of money from the gov but not so much any more
Oxtail wrote:
an unsolicited testimonial for radio that works
This applies to so many potential trades though. Short Bear Stearns? High Yield in March 2009? Timing is everything, the asset doesn't matter.
And Ford Foundation!
Ahh! The irony. Kind of shoots holes in your conspiracy theory, doesn't it? Maybe, just maybe, they aren't out to get you.
Then again, when I see something sponsored by the Goldman Sachs Foundation, maybe I'll reconsider.
merchants of fear (profile) wrote on Thu, 11/5/2009 - 12:34 am
...must be a method to the tinfoil sites,,,they stay in business as their audiences grow and the links stay the same over the years...so it's a network that works together and grows in ad sales...
There is a business for every vice. Confronted by a problematic reality, many folks will spontaneously think of the same solution - the more obvious the route, the greater the chance it has already been explored.
sportsfan wrote:
Hey, were talking RE agents here. Math is not their strong suit. They are still struggling with negative numbers, reduction of fractions is still a bit outside the box for them.
Tropical Depression IDA Public Advisory
she is still there and the hurricane center is watching her very closely
we really dont need this ,i hope we dont get this.
Big Thanks YSLP!
for some time now I've wondered what 'dark pools' are, when I jump over to Zero Hedge they seem to get
talked about a lot...
... strange the panel blew off co-location as an issue seeing that moving near the speed of light is the great
equalizer??? I get off a trade at 3 milliseconds to your say 10 and I won't stomp all over you...
this topic was handled quite well be ZH 6 weeks ago
Blackhalo wrote:
I do hope you're old enough to remember the "4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest" commercials.
Seriously, I don't think they wanted to use those numbers.
merchants of fear
since you asked...here are the exact numbers from NPRs published financial statement
* 31% from listeners in the form of pledges, memberships, and other donations
* 20% from businesses via corporate underwriting
* 11% from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is federally funded*
* 10% from licensee support
* 9% from foundations and major gifts
* 5% from local and state governments, and
* 14% from all other sources.
(my note: other sources include endowments from estates and sales of CDs transscripts and other retail activities)
sportsfan wrote:
Sure am, but I would never pass up a chance to take a shot at RE agents or bankers.
mock turtle wrote:
someday remind me to introduce you to some girls
Side note - I'm sure happy dryfly and mp signed off immediately "before" my two recent posts that are time stamped with each of theirs.
I might have taken it personally had they both done that immediately "after" my two posts.
Goodnight, gentlemen, hope you guys each have a good day tomorrow.
I'm a big fan of this post. This post tells the whole story. Who is in charge? Is it Treasury? Is it t he buerocracy? Nope... its Congress. They are just damn slick at deflecting all the blame.
People who say Obama is a third term of Bush are wrong.
Obama is simply the extension of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush administration... RBCBO! Did we have a savings and loan crises in the 60s or 70s?
OT - CRE
I remain absolutely convinced that CRE in the so-called Inland Empire (basically, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in California) is presently supine and comatose and the prognosis is grave.
This is the worst I have ever seen and it clearly is still on a downward trajectory. I honestly have no idea how it will recover in my lifetime. Perhaps it will, of course, but I can't say "how."
YLSP wrote:
They started kicking that can under Carter, if I recall correctly.
barfly
Goldman Sachs | The Goldman Sachs Foundation - Overview
hey got to be fair.google has more.
Volker
i got a good laugh..no problem... hey! its all good
YLSP - its Congress. They are just damn slick at deflecting all the blame.
Yep, kiss the mothers, steal the babies candy, slap/tax the daddy silly.
This I think is a once in a Generation opportunity to follow the money and influence to reveal what our current political system is all about.
Might be interesting, should I stock up on pop-corn?
...'shoots a hole in your conspiracy theory...'
Barfly,
You probably don't read my stuff too closely...I don't think say big corporations like Ford are evil...maybe their products are good.matbe not...depends on your tastes...
I have cited a bunch of macroeconomic research papers and macroeconomic models that show how financial/currency crises and deflationary boom/bust cycles occur...also showed how much international cooperation(G-20, G-8) there is...that central banks everywhere seem to follow similar policies over time and agree frequently...that banking reform deregulation was removed that allowed risk to increase geometrically...that the steps the U.S. government and U.S. central bank are taking have lead to financial/currency crises and collapses in the past. From the research I cited this mess seems like it could have been avoided but right now the steps are being taken to insure a collapse according to economists who have looked into contagion, collapses, etc.
gabyjan wrote:
The grant guidelines are telling.
OT, a follow up to the C4C list of most frequently purchased vehicles--the information in this article is more consistent w/what I've seen in my area, but I thought that I might be seeing a small sample (low population) and what seems like high % of people in area fancy themselves macho if they drive pickups, the bigger the more macho, even if they never seem to need a pickup (i.e., bed's are always empty)--also suggests/demonstrates program not worth much from decreased pollution perspective. Clunker pickups traded for new pickups, AP analysis finds | Politics & Elections - - Oregonlive.com
ylsp
so its the rbcbo regime? works for me.
Not all RE agents are bad. My GF's uncle and aunt has to sell his house (Grandma's house really. She was a single mom of 3 and a RE agent, so many memories there, etc etc) and move in with his daughter (an awesome lawyer) after being in RE for 35 years cause he hasn't been able to sell shit in the past year or so. He's pretty smart, very nice, very caring, very giving, just unfortunate in getting rolled in this wave.
But I wouldn't deny that 50% are crap.
E Thomas St. - But I wouldn't deny that 50% are crap.
I'll buy in at 80%+, but I'm jaded.
E Thomas St. wrote:
Agreed. Jim the Realtor is an excellent example. But as a group, and particularly the NAR, they are teh 3vil.
blaclhalo
are allowed to give. sort of suprised
maybe it all
Blackhalo wrote:
They are ripe for satire, no doubt. The funny thing is most of them are just people trying to make a living.
Now, the Wall Street types and the David Lereah, Lawrence Yun types should be in whipping posts in town squares all around the country . . . at least until we run out of them . . . either the whipping posts or the miscreants.
YouTube -
(That would be The Allman Brothers, not Wikipedia.)
sportsfan wrote:
Yeah and before the tech boom, IT workers were passionate, hardworking, folk, only to be drowned out in a sea of MBAs with an MCSE.
Re: Scum NPR, the position they took as newscasters was grammatical constructs which favored the passage of the legislation. Something along the lines of, "If the TARP doesn't pass, the economy will crash." It was Volker's line bought by NPR. I know enough of news reality vs what the news sells as its position. NPR was selling the party line. At the time, most in Mish's blog were adamantly opposed to the crossing of the morality line which TARP blew out totally. Being immoral now is not being immoral. It's being a whatever is the positive of the moment. TARP saved the Primary Dealers. That's what it was about. The USG would have collapsed financially with the immediate collapse of those banks which yet should collapse (we took AIG, GMAC, GE, and you name it, all in the name of systemic integrity. This has driven the dollar into a slide, and it will slide now incredibly, and I'm very unhappy about it. And it's driven gold up. The end game is obvious. It plays in slow motion, but it's obvious.
Again, and there's nobody here who can tell me I did not hear what I heard, more than one time, on the day before the vote; the normally say-nothing NPR became a bias-the-audience NPR. Of course, Fox said what it said and GE's stooge, NBC, said what GE needed it to say. But NPR was the last great hope for disinterested journalism. Wrong.
Barfly,
You figure that economic policy advisors and central banking administrators have advanced degrees in Economics...that they have been exposed to economic research literature until they wanted to puke...that they were exposed when they were students to the economic research and models of the day...and that as professionals, they have kept up with the research literature.
And there's a whole area of macroeconomic research that looks at as I've said over & over...currency crises, financial crises, speculative attacks, deflationary cycles, etc. there are conclusions in this research.
If certain policies are pursued like unsustainable govt. spending, high unemployment, and if there are structural imbalances to the economy...this weakness can end up being a target for speculators and (manufactured) EXPECTATIONS OF CURRENCY DEVALUATION AND IT SEEMS THAT THIS IS WHAT THE U.S. IS GOING THROUGH NOW...caps for occasional emphasis off...
Blackhalo wrote:
No, they were always Nerds.
We still are damnit! WAH!
albrt which charlotte nc banks?
Slumdog
NPR has a couple of commentators (commenters sp?) daniel schore being one
except for these you almost never hear one of their anchors or reports tell you the listener "what it is"
npr instead interviews a number of people we might consider to be experts and then conclusions are left up to the listener
if you gave me the name of the program you feel told you tarp had to pass or else (evening edition, this american life, all things considered etc)
i would go back over the archives and see if i can find it
edit
btw...without tarp the financial system and the economy probably would have crashed...im not so sure that would have been altogether a bad thing since, i think the economy will be destroyed by other means eventually anyway...just take longer
by the way..i wrote three letters to my elected representative AGAINST TARP and like you i believe that tarp was an absolute crime against working americans and our children
i published those letters here at CR and can give you the link if you want to go back and see for yourself
Who has been on the National Economic Council?
gabyjan wrote:
I hear that the HQ is moving to NYC, so they are moving up the food chain...
"The latest scuttlebutt making its way around BofA points to that individual potentially holding court in New York, not Charlotte."
Charlotte Business Journal: Is a (NY-based) Bank of America CEO pick imminent?
By scum NPR I presume you mean their one main financial show correct?
I don't recall their many other non-financial interesting shows toeing the line or using verbal constructs.
You might want to try listening to some of their other podcasts IMO before settling on your opinion.
mock, I think the overwhelming consensus here was that TARP was a horrible idea. There were thousands of comments posted on the subject, some celebration and ultimately defeat.
The most striking thing about it to me (and only to me, I might add) is that I was quoting Nancy Reagan as my ending tag line. I think Inland Empire CRE is likely to rebound before that happens again.
bsr
i dont think there is anything we can do but ride the thing on down to the bottoms and thur the bounces until it finally stops and slowly makes its way back up
and this wont be the one to end all depressions it will happen again.just a matter of time.
sportsfan
yeah i lobbied heavy against tarp
and published my letters to one congressman and two us senators on these pages
im with ya...and agree with slumdog that tarp is grand theft country (my words but the same idea
"The banks "dot every 'i' and they cross every 't' and then the knock comes on the door on Friday afternoon," he told her."
MoF, if you think our government is trying to crash our economy by throwing the kitchen sink at it, well, I don't know what to say. That may certainly be the result, but I doubt very seriously that is the intention. Anyway, it's too late now. We'll just have to ride it out.
Slumdog,
If the bubble economy which was pumped up by a lack of mortgage lending standards, scam ratings, hit-the-mark RE/CRE appraisals, insider trading, corporate raiders, pump and dump, etc. was ALLOWED to Fail last year along with all the securitization toxic 'assets' before TARP and the alphabet soup of bailouts... since its structure was rotten it needed to self-destruct...trillion$ could have been saved and the Greatest Depression of all Time might have been avoided as the Too Big To Fail Collapse washing out corruption and mismanagement then...
gabyjan, thanks for the link to the GSF. I had no idea. Shows how far out of the loop I am, I guess.
I wrote a letter to that asshat a few minutes ago. He's a fucking ignorant tard.
Edit: I've had a bit too much wine tonight.
mock turtle wrote:
Meh, as a long time NPR listener and donor, I kind of have to agree with Slumdog to a little bit of a
slant. Way too many interviews of Fuld/NAR/
and not enough Taleb, Ritholtz, Roubini or Schiff. I can kind of forgive them a little bit as, I'm sure NPR/PBS noticed a severe drop in donations/sponsorship since TSHTF.
But calling them scum, seems a bit overboard compared to any other media outlet, other than the bloggers (who apparently could do the math).
barfly,
Just review the financial/currency collapse literature...ever heard the saying 'They should have known' or 'What were they thinking'...or 'They just don't get it'...or"I thought they knew about this stuff'...or 'What were you in school for?' or 'You can lead a horse to water...'
hmm - trying to crash our economy... let's do a slight thought experiment here
... We're knowingly handing out money by the truckload to precisely those the public would later blame for causing the crisis in the first place, and silently talking over key industries to be government-run. Not to solve any problems or magically "heal" the economic engine of finance, but to create stress, apathy and dread in the citizenry... to the end of accepting even more governmental control, oversight and market intervention in the future.
It doesn't make sense at first, but we are thinking of it as a long-term strategy. What if it's not? You want to make FU money for yourself and leave everyone else high and dry. Survival of the fittest baby. Obligate a country to trillions in debt they'll never repay? Oh well, you're buying an island or moving to a moon colony. F the rest, I got mine!
... Hmmm. I'm not convinced but it was a fun exercise.
MoF, ever heard the saying, "What's done is done"?
this just crack me up. We've come to a new orwellian phrase 'repayable loans'. As if the rest are un-repayable, er, gifts?
gm to cut 10K jobs
look...i think its safe to say that
Slumdog
mock turtle and
Blackhalo
all wish that NPR had done an infinitely better job of screaming from the rooftops "the shit is gonna hit the financial fan"
and yes more ritholtz rubini and taleb etc
but then thats why you and slumdog and i and so many here go to CR, naked cap, big picture, zero hedge, prudent bear, market ticker, jesses cafe etc etc etc
to get the stories and facts the mass media only skims at best
hope you have a good evening...good nite
mt
barfly,
If our economic advisors and administrators who are trained economists with advanced degrees have 'studied' and read the 'financial/currency collapse' studies I have cited and even more I haven't obviously, yes they should know the results of cause-and-effect in the sequence of events that lead to economic collapses IMHO.
Heck, some of the highly regarded economists who are advocating huge govt. spending & deficits have written the 'financial/currency crisis' studies and models.
It's simply baffling.
What's done is not done...it's just starting...
ehhh... a pox on the thought experiment...
barfly,
I just stumbled into this stuff surfing the internet for econ stories...like I said 'conspiracy' is not found in the macroeconomic research I've found...just hypotheses of how economic events happen...and the variables, etc.
Whole hearted agreement from here. I have my own suspicions for how this might come to pass, but none of them are any credit to the economists in question.
todays going to be busy,i look to get
at least 5 times, who knows we might really have a bft and bff have a good morning and 
volker the viking wrote:
Yes it can and on a scale beyond what people can fathom. Barter is a serious threat to the status quo and the dollar credit based trick system. Watch for legislation aimed at it.
Barter is the matching of haves and wants. These things can be easily paired online, eliminating the dollar in the transaction. Eliminating the dollar excludes dollar based credit from that part of the economy.
Look at currency markets for an example of a highly evolved barter market. EUR/USD mean euros in dollars. No reason you can't have barter pairs analogous to currency pairs like toaster/microwave, apple/orange, corvette/kia... Barter pair values could be further extrapolated as with currency crosses.
All that is needed is a classified matching system that accounts for haves and wants. sort of like craigslist for barter with a kelly blue book type repository of arcane barter pair values so sellers can evaluate potential crosses and offers. Additionally an auction approach to the classifieds could have participants bid using their "haves:" 10 kia for a corvette, or two apples for an orange.
Off the shelf internet technology can match haves and wants.
Mof, the only economists who mattered (at the time), were Greenspan, Summers, Rubin, Gramm, and a few others whose names don't immediately come to mind, who apparently contributed mightily to this situation, some of whom are still in seats of power, and now we're here. Hindsight is always 20-20. Bitching feels good, but it really doesn't help. Give it a rest, or gripe to someone who gives a shit. As for me, I think they're backpeddling furiously, trying to prevent a collapse that would make GD1 look like a cakewalk, and still likely to lose control. I'm hoping that doesn't happen , and trying not to throw any gasoline on the flames.
barfly wrote:
What strikes you as "backpeddling"?
National Economic Council
Robert Rubin - Executive at GS (1993 - 1995)
Laura D'Andrea Tyson - Academic (1995-1996)
Gene Sperling (1996-2000) -
Lawrence Lindsay - Harvard Graduated Economist and FRB member, fired for $200B cost of Iraq War (2000-2002)
Steven Freidman - Executive at GS (2002-2005)
Al Hubbard - Businessman (2005-2007)
Keith Hennessey - republican capital hill politico hack (2007-2008)
Larry Summers (2008-present)
Didn't keep track but seemed like all these people had Harvard ties.
What strikes you as "backpeddling"?
TJ, TARP and stimpac, and every program in between. The hands off approach has obviously failed us.
How is Jaws Paulson ramming Tarp cock down everyone's throat hands off?
Hands off was what we had before TARP, if you'll recall.
Blackhalo
here's to Jim the Realtor
had some good laughs tossing together YouTube - Jim TV Realtor Stops Real Estate Californiacation and Goes Global ,
the piece looks simple but had a ton of edits in it to get the pacing and spatial sense right...
....
ps: no more Jim vids, the last one died big time on Youtube... the franchise is Kaput!
How is post TARP not failure except in semantics alone?
Everyone deserves a little space to go WTF? And we all come to the realization at different times.
barfly wrote:
. . . and here I thought it was much more than that. It was a sign from the third base coach to steal.
It'll take the better part of a decade to clear the mess that caused.
How is post TARP not failure except in semantics alone?
the fact that you're not eating out of a dumpster this very night.
How do you know God didn't magically prevent economic collapse? Prove God didn't save us.
(see where I'm going here with your specious reasoning)
What do you think I've been talking about, Viking?
You're only two steps away from my open-source currency.
:shakes head:
---Bloomberg.com
You can delude yourself about anything to rationalize greedy self-interest, but this takes the cake.
Don't forget the ever popular: How do you know where I'm getting my food from?
Echoes from the past. There was a sermon in the 1920's similar to this(I'll find it in a little while) , and J.D. Rockerfeller, "God gave me my money."
1 Currency
talk about tinfoil hat time!
I just checked my Youtube entries and all my star ratings across the board
are now 1/2 star!
....
the Yankees win! Great News!
Got my first WPT 10k "main event" tomorrow sd, will report progress.
Can't believe you guys are not biting on barter. This is potentially the most disruptive form of economic organization. This is the natural evolution of the current craigslist economy.
Where are the gold beetles? Gold would be king in a barter system. Also, what hell you think people will be forced to do in a currency collapse if not barter.
Managing the complexity of a functioning Haves and Wants marketplace is probably within the competency of tens of thousands of open source programmers. This is inevitable.
You know what California needs right now? About $25 billion more in new spending.
California lawmakers pass historic water package -- baltimoresun.com
Booyah! Is this like maxing out your credit card before you declare bankruptcy?
The closing of FBOP was unfortunate and shows how capable our government really is.
Treasury, federal bank regulators trip over each other in FBOP failure
FBOP deserved better treatment
Park National Got Robbed
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tue-fbop-nov03,0,4074780.story
More reason to come back to the apple, pal.
1 Currency wrote:
“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20...
.....
that;s a hell of a quote, almost on par with Boesky's Greed is Good from the Predators ball. Probably too late in the shooting
schedule to include it in Wall Street II. Pity!
He's an action junkie,...he can smell the fear starting to hit,..he's got to come back to the US. He might fool himself that he should be in LA, but he'll get drawn to the action.
From The Money Game(1967)
JP Morgan's preacher, Bishop Lawrence,"Godliness is in league with riches; it is only to the moral man that wealth comes. Material prosperity makes the nation sweeter, more joyous, more unselfish, more Christlike"
I currency ...
you're right , I thought long and hard about LA but 1) I'm too old to tackle that place again,
2) my material has never been right for Hollywood, 20 years ago I could've whored myself to write
a typical Hollywood script but now my sensibility is too locked in
3) the last time I had a really great financial year was when the Yanks last won, might be a harbinger
of the tide has turned... and maybe not!
....
sdtfs
yeah. I can smell the fear and it's coming from me! I over shot my stay here by 6 months.
need to get back and bicycle my stuff around and get some kind of work to stop the cash bleed...
I'm sure I have the smallest net worth on this board (might be neg... hate to look)
Man, I always had the fantasy of taking 30k and heading for South America. Shack up with some chick to learn the local language. Live the simple / hard life for a few years.
Was that what you did DCD? Cambodia sounds like a neat place to bail to... or Indonesia. Never been definitely on my list.
Broke Nic Cage selling 4 or 5 large houses...suing manager.
Consider this post a non commercial break from the Duke and Yogi Show that usually comes on this time of night.
When cash runs out possessions are liquidated. Unemployment and imploding credit depletes cash. Foreclosures and associated homelessness create people who have possessions and no where to put them.Those without cash will seek to trade what they have for what they need. People will definitely attempt barter every time when they have no currency. What are the other choices?
Sign of the times: I placed an ad for my old truck and only got calls from people looking to trade.
Barter is austerity.It is a natural form of human interaction. Much more so than faith based digital credits.
Jonathan,
delete
djb - c'mon, your shilling will set off the thread bs meter quicker than a Jas bomb.
Tip: it is politic to wait at least an hour after registering before launching the first
C
Nick Coppola Cage broke? he can always get a loan from Uncle Francis...
funny, he seems to have been working as of late, they were B grade scripts yes,
but each flick should have paid him 3 to 5 mil, esp that one based on Hell Rider
... maybe he had to take points upfront instead and I don't think any were hits...
Hey, C-
What time zone are you in?
DCD, Sorry, I have auditioned a few times myself and been found wanting, sadly. Married now to a good solid woman, though she may struggle a bit if things get bad.
Know what you mean about NYC. Great city. Real city, like London. Houston is just a sprawl really. Here's a story... I wound up doing a ticket dismissal class, and one of the dudes in there had a janitorial small business. And was thinking of opening an international office,... in Dallas. That about sums up Houston, though it's not been too bad to me really.
Gah, have a rat or something overhead. Thought it had gone, but working to get an animal control dude out in the morning. It's the little things that make life special, like not having an attic full of rats.
Only really ever liked "Arizona", which I loved.
Otis: my currency is as close to barter as I'll let my feeble old mother use, and yours will thank me, too.
I think the third world is out for you then.
Jonathan,
actually, the big marriage was supposed to happen on Nov 27th, 2007 but I bailed on that date 8 weeks before
cause my old man would not attend and by extension mom... if I really wanted the marriage should've been there the
first time! the do-over was a pie in the face... later, her family politics intruded and I got what I deserved!
....
Cage had that one move he did in Face Off and repeated over and over again, the slow burn into a volcanic reaction
...
LOL. I must be soft in my old age.
Saw a Black Widow on the porch the other night. We got plenty of wildlife here. And I think I just realized what the shrill calls are at night. Hordes of freaking rats.
I've worked with a few Asian women. Really special people, but a different culture. They'll clean up in the end most likely.
American Exceptionalism, meet People of WalMart...
:ambien: (hint to kcoop)
Yield curve up to 2.61. Some people think that indicates something.
"Yield curve up to 2.61. Some people think that indicates something."
....
sooner or later that thing has to stop moving up, no? with the Treasury doing 81 bil next week
maybe their is some resistance...
Y'know I'm not sure it has a name, like EST or PST. Guess it's Pacific West.
C
Anyone ever read any Jonathan Lethem? Talked about "Chronic City" on npr today. Sounded great.
Squeaking? yeah, whistling? maybe mice, rusty hinge? Owls.
yogi - what duration on the yield curve has risen to 2.61?? Country? Ain't US 2, 5, or 7 as far as bloomie can tell me.
C
By convention, yield curve usually refers to 10 - 2. $81 BB record next week.
thought he was talking about the 10 yr (big jump)
I'll be back on later... after I hold a pistol to my head and finish
what I think is one of the wackiest stories about Central park (actually
it was finished in 2003 and I hope this is a more svelte flowing version of that one,
sharper and less verbose (right now it comes in at almost 16,000 words)
The theory as I understand it is a larger spread indicates a flight to short term safety and/or a demand for better rates long-term.
what the hell am i doing here
What? Are you referring to the 2-10 spread? Ok, it's reading 261bps, but that's only after tightening through midnight EST. Was wider after FOMC.
C
nothing matters because everything can matter
markets will rally for 2 more weeks, eg oil tease $100
then crash, because that's the way things have always been
that's the wisdom of dance
Existentially? Looking for some place that, although they might not agree with you, at least will understand what you're saying.
Physically? You're a night owl.
Or you've mislaid your glasses.
You tip the waitress by asking for her waitress code number, unless the restaurant's billing program is also plugged into the currency.
Pot dealers would take it to the extent the community wants a separate pool for anonymous (pirate) transactions. It's open-source, so there's no impediment. In my version every bar-codable transaction would be recorded and traceable by any user, but some anonymity can be rebuilt, such as for literature/porn/medicine/poker. No tax dodge, though.
At first, I would be afraid the bad PR would kill development: "new currency enables dope sales". Pot may be legal in more places soon though.
Or that cheap acid has a gnarly speed tail? Try cocoa.
C
/edit, for otis.
otis isn't here, he is there. he is there because he is not here.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Surrey+call+centre+closure+cuts+nearly+jobs/2185297/story.html
apparently my home province had ~25,000 call center jobs
2,400 cut this year. relocated elsewhere, but only a fraction thereof.
I'm guessing the gap is being filled by India? or is it all just straight fewer people handling more calls
"I had NO IDEA the officer was really a prostitute."
---VH1's Behind the Music: Homer Simpson
why the hell is otis not here?
C
It's a free country, and whatnot.
but he's not here. So he may not be in a free country. I'm not sure he was ever here.
And I don't understand what he's saying when he's here.
Better out there. I can understand that.
I've been in that place.
I'd rather be here.
C
I'm bugging out, too. Good
But maybe somewhen else.
Rogoff, Johnson Say G-20 May Fail to Curb Global Imbalances - Bloomberg.com
C
MrM wrote:
Have you thanked your government yet?
Goldman IS your government. Thank Goldman.
Hands off, gubmint oppressors! Let zombie banks be zombie banks. They just want to be left to moan, wander about in slow circles, and await mouthfuls of soft, chewy bailout money. Geez, is that so hard to understand?
Good morning all. I'm trying to speed read and digest. This is worse than when I was in college with required volumes to read every night. You can't walk away from the computer without missing a lot it seems. I see the homebuyer tax credit was voted on extended and expanded although the expansion is half what they was proposed. Move ups closing costs, etc. won't be totally covered by it so, screw that. Its ALL folly anyway.
I also see Mr. Frank and crew moved up the CC regs. Its too late, CC companies have already done what surely should have been expected of them. What did Frank expect anyway? Can they really be that out of touch and stupid or are political pressers weighing?
I'll take Political pressures are weighing for $1,000, Alec.
Apologies if this has been posted previously. I'm GOBSMACKED! I wonder if CR got an invitation to DC? The fact that they are talking to financial bloggers speaks VOLUMES about the current situation.
........
http://fridayinvegas.blogspot.com/2009/11/sit-down-with-senior-treasury-officials.html
vtv
+10 My sentiments exactly.
For Juvenal.
404 - Not Found - sacbee.com
This stuff makes me crazy, just crazy....I wanna roast me some
on a slow open fire for days.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMVX5q9SgWJ8&pos=5#
and this is just the tip of the massive ARS iceberg. Check how much JPMorgan and GS got and the 'gifts' to state officials. OMG.
,rad HG,
Building more dams in which to hold water, would be akin to fixing the financial situation by building more banks.
Good Morning Nanoo - I needed a second cup of
to get through it all. On the Card Act, the Udall amendment to the unemployment insurance extension was not included in the final bill so the Senate has not done anything on it yet. Udall's bill is still in the Senate Banking Committee, but Dodd wants to drop his regulatory reform bill and have it debated and marked up in the two weeks the Senate is meeting in November, so it is unlikely the Card Act amendment gets addressed. Dodd has filed a bill to freeze rates, and that may get attached to a continuing resolution or something.
On the story CR posted, it is interesting that Park National was not troubled. Te FDIC used powers given to it by Congress to assess losses from failed banks against sister banks owned by the same holding company . Park Natonal refused and the FDIC took them over. And bank owners are calling up their Congressmen all the time they get into regulatory trouble. These calls were
Just wondered if you had seen the article.
Politicians are out of control!
HomeGnome wrote:
The state house punted. The charade depends upon an $11b bond issue. Yeah right. JD may disagree (he is paid to have an opinion) but California does not have a water infrastructure problem. California has a developer subsidy and political power problem. As such you cannot expect a political solution. Small correction; CA does have some infrastructure upkeep issues but this bill doesn't address those. At that this "historic" "final solution" is neither. IMO it is political patronage to build new storage for a system that cen never reasonably be expected to reach "full" ever again. Nothing but a beard to conceal pork.
Pardon my laziness, I can't possibly read through everything because I'm old and slow...lol. But what took the oxygen out of the markets late yesterday?
I can't wait for more ARS fun that will be seen in CA and around the nation as it was widely practiced. There will surely be some class-action lawsuits that will result but as usual it probably will take a decade or more for investors to get any remedies (or for those the bonds were issued). I didn't buy but just another outraged no one. I know what it will mean....more taxes.
As Jesse so eloquently put it:
"How Can You Tell When Gold Is In a Bubble?"
When the junior miners start showing these kinds of returns, you might be in a bubble.
We're nowhere near that point yet.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H2DePAZe2gA/SvI3wEDsASI/AAAAAAAAKP8/dzbAL7IGDO4/s400/juniorminers.jpg
I've heard quite a few radio ads for "Free Gold Investor Packages" the last couple of days.
,rad HG,
Thanks for the article, i'd seen it and have been following events in Sacramento.
It's hard to ascertain which is more screwed up in Big Gov here, the fiscal or water policy?
This is really a make or break year as far as the drought is concerned. We've got ourselves in a bit of a sticky wicket. You can print manna imaginary all you want, it's just pressing letters and numbers on a keyboard not unlike this one, bingo! financial crisis averted. (for now...)
But, unfortunately, I can't see how a water stimulus would work, as you can't conjure it up out of thin air, can you?
The coming collapse of the municipal bond market
The coming collapse of the municipal bond market - Credit Writedowns
Place your bets accordingly.
If I was really dependent upon the California Delta as my water source, i'd want to read this book by Marc Reisner, the author of "Cadillac Desert".
"A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate"
WTF?
.......
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20603037&sid=aSI6Lm42fBno
TBTF became TBTGTF(tobigtogettheflu)
Have a great day all and play nice with your fellow humans...they might be armed.
Goldman Sachs Received H1N1 Vaccine Before Several Hospitals