Well there's not really anything they can do about their customers being short. Wait, what?

The scary part - this is before you consider survivors' bias.

Something is up ( err down ) dollar dropping big time and Gold up $10

Great read from Charles Smith:

charles hugh smith-Weblog and Essays 

RealClearMarkets - Searching for a Better Understanding of Depressions

The oldest law of economics tells us that human wants are unlimited, and arguably implies that depressions can't be predicted with any accuracy. In light of this most basic of economic laws, economic mistakes can't cause depressions, but governmental attempts to correct earlier mistakes can. Depressions can't so much be predicted as they can occur if governments increase the wedge between work and reward.

In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, prominent investor Mark Spitznagel observed that "The 1920s were marked by the brave new era of the Federal Reserve system promoting inflationary credit expansion and with it permanent prosperity." Even though falling commody prices in the '20s suggested monetary tightness rather than inflationary ease, Spitznagel asserted that legendary Austrian-School economist Ludwig Von Mises knew the allegedly inflationary rise of credit would lead to a banking collapse. As the visionary who foresaw this, Von Mises according to Spitznagel predicted the Great Depression.

I owned a small retail business for years, and every month I had to make the nut of about $6,000 to keep to doors open, let alone make any profit.

Very few retail stores are owned by the proprietor, as most are leased. I suspect that a good many retailers are planning their exit strategy...

Birth-Death adjustment +120,000 a month!

outsider
lopsided

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

as most are leased. I suspect that a good many retailers are planning their exit strategy...

+1 The nuts and bolts of it all

More Iranian Warnings About 2-11

Something is up.

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran will deliver a harsh blow to "global arrogance" on February 11.

Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is now out with pretty much the same message.

"The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel, reports Breitbart.

Iran anniversary 'punch' will stun West: Khamenei 

Supporters of anti-regime elements are expected to stage protests on that day. The Iranian government has charged that the protests are instigated by U.S. operatives.

Gotta go run the treadmill of life now. I hope you all come up with some solutions. I'll check back in tonight, expectantly.

Mr Slippery wrote:

Birth-Death adjustment +120,000 a month!

Dang, I'm going to invest in Carousel mfg for the Brave New Logans Run World.

shill wrote:

Charles Smith:

He has a couple of good articles on how local government burdens will be "shared"

CR: *And the number one problem:

"The biggest problem continues to be a shortage of customers." *

Does this mean I can stop hearing about how the unavailability of SBA loans are * the problem *?

Mr Slippery wrote:

My aunt ran a convenience store for 10 years. I've never seen anyone work so hard [for so little].

Feeling like you have a purpose is worth a lot of money. (Being your own boss too.)

If these small businesses would just adapt and diversify their operations to include proprietary trading, they could 'earn' their way out.

I was thinking that as well JP. The fact is, they killed the consumer. Insurance rates in Cali just went up over 30%. Wages haven't gone up in decades but the cost of everything else has. I guess they'll keep shoveling money at the top hoping it trickles down and the consumer will start spending again...

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

I always wondered what kept him in business, was it a front for something else?

It's the heavily cash businesses that make good fronts for money laundering. I'd expect a lot of CC business in a luggage store. On the other hand, there could be huge margins on Chinese made luggage; who knows?

tehran times : Nation’s unity will surprise hegemonistic powers on Feb. 11: Leader

I was thinking that as well JP. The fact is, they killed the consumer. Insurance rates in Cali just went up over 30%. Wages haven't gone up in decades but the cost of everything else has. I guess they'll keep shoveling money at the top hoping it trickles down and the consumer will start spending again...

Well it trickles down just fine to all the illegals in the form of section 8 and welfare ( you know the democratic voters ) , the bigger question is what about the rest of us.

shill wrote:

the bigger question is what about the rest of us.

You get tea-bagged by Caribou Barbie. Isn't that enough?

shill wrote:

More Iranian Warnings About 2-11

Getting the impression from some other things I'm reading that it's an advanced air-defense system. Good luck with that.

Does it? How then is it that the top 10% continuously control more and more of the wealth pie while the bottom 90% fight over what's left? Facts just don't coincide with your theory.

greeces-fiscal-woes-bring-bailout-questions: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

You don't work a small business, you live it 24/7!

CK,

There is plenty of money to make. 90% won't do what it takes to get it.

and they're off!

Black Star Ranch wrote:

I think many are now at #3.......

He left out the part about not paying and pocketing the last few months rent, and pocketing the sales tax receipts, hoping to settle fo less with the state at some time int he future. The last one especially popular for restaurants for some reason.

Black Star Ranch wrote:

I think many are now at #3

because they sorta skipped over #2

most of them couldn't sell beer on a troop ship

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

90% won't do what it takes to get it.

i don't look good with a mask, and I'm reluctant to throw down on anyone with a hog leg

so, put me in the 90%

Reverse survivorship bias also means that many of the most successful small businesses become large businesses.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

I was in the rarest of retail businesses, one in which buying from the hoi ploy was much more important than selling anything to them...

Pawn broker?

ekathimerini.com | Home Page

they really dont seem to be to worried about anything,imo

....and, if all this AND the Top-20 Doomers List wasn't enough to worry about, lets also worry about cancer causing "ThirdHand Smoke". ANYTHING smoke has touched (through second-hand exposure) now is causing you cancer......Lots of attorneys salivating over this new revenue stream.......

Thirdhand Smoke Forms Cancer-Causing Residue Indoors That Lasts - Bloomberg.com

noob goldberg wrote:

institutional players account for something like 70% of the pie now,

With the entry of a sovereign that owns the actual production facilities in particular commodities, then that percentage rises; the casino got a large mark player with tons o cash.

Off to work all. Thanks Maury and dum luk. I thought there had to be something to cause it.

Great were printing more Euro, then more Dollars....hehe got &

shill wrote:

Cinco ....Pheasant Lane Mall is a shadow of it's former self for sure....tic tic tic

I was talkin' about the Mall in Leominster, but Solomon Pond Mall is in the same shape. My wife once work in retail, and she says she can't see how folks are surviving with the present traffic; it's tough all around-

Smoking doesn't cause cancer. Everyone knows someone who smoked for decades and is fine, and someone with lung cancer who never smoked. There is no greenhouse effect, either.

At any point in time, the number of dollars in circulation is fixed. Printing more is illusory wealth. You can only increase net wealth by lowering prices through innovation, or substituting more leisure time for work time with the same productivity. Or keeping prices constant but improving quality.

Dollar wealth is a zero sum game.

Amid high unemployment and sliding home prices, a growing number of struggling consumers are doing what was once considered unthinkable: paying their credit card bills instead of their mortgages. A recent study developed by TransUnion found the percentage of Americans who were current on their credit cards but behind on their mortgage increased to 6.6 percent in the third quarter of 2009, up from 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, the share of consumers making mortgage payments on time but behind on their credit cards moved in the opposite direction, sliding from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent over the same time period.

A credit card, however, can disappear much quicker, Becker says. "If you go a couple months without paying your credit card bill, they are going to close your account," he says. "You won't be able to access your credit."

Forget the Mortgage, I'm Paying My Credit Card Bill - Yahoo! Finance

When trickle-down stops working the government steps in to make the process even less efficient. What a system!

bearly,
It's only called "trickle down" at the top. On the receiving end, it's "trickled on".

jjcomet wrote:

When we get to the point where 75% of the country is working for minimum wage to prop up profit margins, who in hell will be able to afford any of the goods and services they produce?

Welcome to a "service economy". Eventually it implodes and falls in on itself. "Globalism" has its own foibles - like making US non-competitive in manufacturing, engineering, design, medicine, (fill in the blank).......I don't see a way the US can support a healthy middle class on less manufacturing and a bigger service base.

volker the viking wrote:
what happened to the value added concept?
While you add value, someone else is stealing money.

burnside wrote:

The DJI booked 7.13 Million volume in the first 60 seconds.

I was hoping for a stronger bounce than that; I was going to pony up a few more chips . We only hit +130 and it wasn't huge volume. Yesterdays close, for example, saw almost 40 million shares move in the last 90-120 seconds. I was expecting a 2% move upward, but some big guy keeps driving down the price everytime it gets to 10030 or so.

It's a very good thing that NYC wasn't snowmeggonized like DC or the PPT team wouldn't have made it to work Today is an 'all-hands' day on the pump at the homes of the on WS.

Cinco-X wrote:

Killed by the internet, IIRC

once we're interconnected via the series of intertubes, the awareness of the ponzi scheme spreads

so, the day when we can't meet 'here' will be a day remembered in history

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

Smoking doesn't cause cancer

You are right; people cause cancer!

noob goldberg
who would benefit by doing that?
could it be presidents working group?
if so what would be benefit in doing that?

Current government efforts are akin to someone frantically gluing all the leaves back onto a tree in autumn, because they refuse to allow the season to change.

You might be able to do it with one tree, but it takes an enormous effort. Meanwhile, all the other trees in your yard keep on shedding their leaves.

jd
dont forget workers stealing.

gabyjan wrote:

if so what would be benefit in doing that?

I don't have any idea what the benefit would be. Perhaps someone sees it as a chance to back out of a large position, who knows?

I'm just watching it keep hitting the wall, and then a bunch of volume slams it back down ten or twenty points, and then it marches right back up to the wall.

cinco-x
yes i mentioned it,it shocked me, just hope it doesnt catch on.

For a very brief time, I worked at Best Buy as a pc monkey in the tech bay a long, long time ago...it wasn't just the customers shoplifting...I could not believe how many employees, including management types stole from the store. The GM did a I'm going to fire everyone speech to my department, after which I pulled him aside and informed him that I had reported this problem over 3 months ago to 3 separate assistant managers....he went ballistic on me and said I should have come to him....my response was, based on my army brat background, there was a chain of command and you put people in places of trust who are responsible. He informed me that this wasn't the army and everything should go through him...so I laid out everything I saw...which was pretty much a complete store wide culture of corruption...he immediately got nervous and I was promoted and given duties that kept me behind the tech counter all day. The sad thing is, this store was #1 in the country while I was there...makes me wonder what else was being manipulated...

ah ha...

One thing that makes it easy for employees of brick & mortar retailers to steal from their employers, is the idea that the retailer doesn't know who did the deed.

Take away the physical retail presence, and it's a lot harder to get away with it.

noob, one thing I enjoy so much living in a small town is the relationships I have with local businesses. In big metro areas you are anonymous for the most part and that can be nice. But I walk into the little town restaurant here for breakfast and I don't have to ask for coffee, its sitting there for me. I go to the hardware store and I am met with friendly faces. It is a community here which I value a whole lot. People know me, my husband and my dog. heh.

Without the internet though, I'd be lost. Astronomy for example, the equipment and things I needed certainly couldn't be purchased locally. I'm comfortable with both but I know people who can't shop online, technology left them behind and I'm always ordering things for them. I worry about that with myself, thats a big fear.

Just some more borrowing for the Great......

State trust funds have been decimated by the Great Recession, forcing a record 26 states to borrow a total of more than $30 billion from the federal government. The numbers are expected to grow to 40 states borrowing $90 billion by 2012, said George Wentworth, policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project.

Texas is one of the hard-hit states. Though its unemployment rate is a relatively low 8.3%, jobless claims have soared. In December, Texas paid 330,000 residents a total of $325.7 million, up from 228,000 people claiming $216.8 million a year earlier.

The state began borrowing from the feds in July to pay unemployment benefits and now owes Washington $1.6 billion, said Ann Hatchitt, spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission.

Companies paying more in unemployment taxes - Feb. 9, 2010

Cinco-X,

Local governments will go to new lengths to rob the public before they ever stand their ground and cut cost. To many are bound by law to give pay raises to union employees. Double dipping will be the game till the public can't pay any more, then that is when the real fun begins.

Five Stages Of Grief
1. Denial and Isolation.
2. Anger.
3. Bargaining.
4. Depression.
5. Acceptance.

I don't believe that services are inherently less profitable economic activities than manufacturing; if anything, I'd guess profit margins are considerably higher for services firms as a whole. However, service jobs are generally lower-paying, which means that much less of the profit generated by the company returns to the economy in the form of consumer spending. That's a problem in a country whose economy depends on a steadily growing rate of consumer spending.

km4
so where are we now?
im on acceptance,dont like it but i accept it try to live with it. thats the way it goes.

noob, I meant to tell you that you made me laugh really hard several days ago talking about the cold and the frozen milk in your trunk. Been there and DONE that. ha.

You'll also relate to this. We've got really HARD frozen ground, not as much snowpack as usual but we had a rain event a week or so ago on top of the snow. I live in the mtns and on a slope. The rain was hard, the water had no where to go but...in my basement. UGH, what a mess. Over 4" and we ran out to get a sump pump for the first time as that basement is usually bone dry. Living in the arctic (and you are colder and snowier than I am) can be adventurous. I'll take it over tornadoes though..I'd much rather push snow around.

TM up, WMT down. Looks rational to me.

@gabyjan (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Tue, 2/9/2010 - 8:01 am
km4 so where are we now?
im on acceptance,dont like it but i accept it try to live with it. thats the way it goes.

You are rare...I think still mostly in stages 2 -4 because of 30+ yrs of conditioning from MSM and politicians about false change and hope as the middle class has been getting pounded along the way....

"I wonder if there has ever been a society so badly deluded as ours"....James Howard Kunstler

Why Sovereign Debt Pain Has Only Just Started - Yahoo! Finance

On Tuesday February 9, 2010, 8:57 am EST

Let's play a game. I'll remove a few words from the following piece of debt market research and you guess which country the strategist author is talking about.

"The country urgently needs a credible and enforceable austerity plan - the worry for **** investors is that, despite all the **** posturing, politicians still fail to grasp the magnitude of the problem. Repercussions could be severe - the bond vigilantes are hovering and the backdrop is ever threatening ..."

Greece? Spain? Portugal?

Actually, it is the UK that Schroders' Head of European & UK Interest Rate Strategies David Scammell is talking about. But, quite frankly, he could have been talking about any number of countries both in the European Union and beyond. And that is the problem.

We have become used to this kind of concern at the so-called 'peripheral' euro zone members. But maybe we need to get real, even if the politicians won't, and realize that the pain has only just started in a host of Western countries. -More-

We're going to need to go into medical metaphors: 'recovery' means the patient gets to leave the hospital. This patient isn't even stable and still in ICU awaiting MAJOR surgery as a last resort.

Wholesalers' Report

Inventories: DEC -0.8% NOV +1.6%r ! Consensus: +0.5% !
Sales: DEC +0.8% NOV +3.6%r ! Actual: -0.8%

Nanoo-Nanoo wrote:

Over 4" and we ran out to get a sump pump for the first time as that basement is usually bone dry. Living in the arctic (and you are colder and snowier than I am) can be adventurous.

Our sump pump has been running daily since we had a rainfall a few weeks ago. If it ever quit working we'd be completely screwed, as we use our basement as additional living space, and that's where the kids spend most of the day playing. Most of the electronics is up off the floor, and it's not enough flow to add more than an inch before we'd notice it, but it would make a terrible mess with the carpets and furniture.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. wholesale inventories fell by 0.8% in December, while sales increased by 0.8%, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Wall Street economists had expected a 0.5% increase in December wholesale inventories.

Mook,

Do you see this requirement for intense specialization leading to a breakdown in the English language...or more of a splintering....I am already seeing it...I talk about The Tower of Babel meme a lot, but I think we're living in it...everything was brought together by technology and now the pace of change will put up barriers between groups not based on geography but job specialization of all things..

Rome didn't burn in a day - oh wait

That's like a 14 point swing in a football game...

You can't sell from an empty cart.

Fannie and Freddie Stagger On as Troubled Wards of the State - WSJ.com

Fixing Seasons of California Discontent - WSJ.com

The prospect of more California-statehouse dysfunction this year is adding momentum to two efforts to overhaul California's budget process—including one that could rewrite much of the state's constitution.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

That's like a 14 point swing in a football game...

The market got all greenshootie there for a minute on the news. Almost hit +150 before someone pulled in the reins. We're never going to hit +200 points at this rate

Should make those radio operators happy. Going to be an interesting year for sun watchers.

WH: Some Critics 'Serving the Goals of al Qaeda'* - Political Punch

Vonbek777 wrote:

Do you see this requirement for intense specialization leading to a breakdown in the English language...or more of a splintering....I am already seeing it...I talk about The Tower of Babel meme a lot, but I think we're living in it...

I spent many hours railing against this very prospect earlier in my adulthood, but the more I think about it the less I fear it.

Because I think, instead of a "breakdown", it's very likely that there will be "two English languages" in a generation's time ... a more staid "formal English" used in the news and literature and an ever-transmogrifying "common English" used in conversation. Specialties, generations, etc. (not just geographies) may come up with their own dialects and slang in the common language as it branches ever outward, but it will be understood and accepted that communications to society as a whole are done using "formal English".

I can think of a lot of situations in today's world where I'd actually welcome that development.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

It's important for the powers that be to have the DJIA dance around the 10k mark, up and down and sideways. The public views the financial proceedings almost like you'd follow your favorite sporting team, sadly.

I think our team needs to make a couple of trades. We're a little weak on defence.

I am divided on this point. In general I think you are right. The few times I got to work on the floor...I didn't try to sell anything....I guess it is because of my high empathy...but I just talked to customer and tried to figure out what they really wanted...I always made a sell. Problem was I didn't move the inventory the store wanted, even though I usually sold higher grade gear because I was honest about the lower end stuff being junk. I also didn't push the store protection plan, but I did explain what the warranty covered, how long it was, and the reputation of the customer service department...and that usually resulted in a sell of the protection plan...which really wasn't my intention truth be told...I left because of the protection plan...had really bad moral crisis over what was going on.

I just asked my boss for a race car. She (wife) said no. Never make promises, you will regret.

To minimize irritating people with market data, I'll throw this after the pig, but volume today is even lower than yesterday, and yesterday was incredibly weak.

...a depression...would give our society a decade or so to digest all the innovations and changes of the past 25 years so that we could move forward from there in a more cohesive manner.

I doubt we'll have that luxury.

Anak wrote:

Sorry, putting the children to bed . . . yes when the futures price deviates too much from the cash price you face basis risk, which cannot be hedged and is deadly. Just when you think you're hedging, you're actually laying on more risk. Would be hedgers gradually no longer use futures to hedge, or their banks stop asking them to hedge, because the futures are no longer protection. Their money goes away and the futures market turns into a casino, spec vs spec. True breakdown of its social function. Futures markets in China are like that today.

" Investors begin to look at the derivatives markets to make a decision to buy or sell securities and so what was originally meant to be a market to transfer risk now becomes a leading indicator." Wiki

Which, in and of itself, would not be bad, except that herd behavior chases the indicator....

shill wrote:

Cinco ....Pheasant Lane Mall is a shadow of it's former self for sure....tic tic tic

Peasant lane.....IFIFY, couldn't resist