Hope NOW! Or else!
I would like to add to Squeeze Me's statement about the importance of property rights. "Property" doesn't mean only real estate. It includes all other kinds of objects - such as printing presses! For an example of how property right mischief can subvert other rights, try exercising your first amendment rights over the radio waves - which the FCC effectively owns. If they don't like what you're saying, they can and do put a stop to it.
With all the spending, I would hope we are seeing some "progress."
I see glimmers of hope...
Yesterday I heard someone say that their home prices will take "about ten years" to return to 07 prices. Last year they said about five. When they say "never" I'll know we will have capitulated.
What a bunch of crap. Why do they even bother to report what he says anymore? This is just like Bernanke's "green shoots" comments on 60 Minutes that we completely dashed by the FOMC statement that came out later. I'm totally tired of the lying.
Bill Clinton publicly told BHO to be more positive, and that's what we're hearing lately.
Bill Clinton publicly told BHO to be more positive, and that's what we're hearing lately.
It works.
Believe dumbo, believe.....
Wiley Coyote wipes his brow and breathes a sigh of relief.
Q Sir, are you saying the recession is abating?
THE PRESIDENT: I'm saying we're seeing progress.
Q You're saying what?
THE PRESIDENT: I've said that we're seeing progress.
I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so!
"That's great. Any "glimmers of change" yet?"
How about glimmers of transparency?
"Fed Orders Banks Not to Release Stress Test Results"
Oh, yeah, right.
I like Obama personally. I donated money to him during his campaign (mainly out of loathing for conservatives/republicans). But they way he has jumped in with Summers (particularly Summers) , Geithner, Rubin, Goldman Sachs et. al. has really disappointed me and caused me to question my support for him going forward quite a bit.
"It works. "
In the short term. But in the end, banks still broke.
So many here comment that we're "turning Japanese" as if their lost decade + is worse than we can do--I think it's probably the best we can do.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!"
Wiley Coyote wipes his brow and breathes a sigh of relief.
Better not look down.
The economy is dead. The economy is risen!
Bringing stability is a higher priority than transparency in the throws of a crisis (unless it ruins your shorts of course)
"Economists see U.S. recession ending in second half of 2009"
http://www.smartbrief.com/news/cpa/storyDetails.jsp?issueid=ECFFB85F-C03...
"Six Flags delisted from New York Stock Exchange"
http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKN0948125220090409
Right.
You know, If Obama can only see "glimmers of hope", then we really are done for.
T-Shirt for the times.
There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution
There is no bloody revolution
We are spirits in the material world
We are spirits in the material world
We are spirits in the material world
We are spirits in the material world
Our so called leaders speak
With words they try to jail you
They subjugate the meek
But it's the rhetoric of failure
------------------
sacrealstats
Economy recovers late 2009 or early 2010.
GiezCubed wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 10:53am.
Bringing stability is a higher priority than transparency in the throws of a crisis (unless it ruins your shorts of course)
What a convienient doctrine. It allows the internment of the Nissei, acts as a fig leaf for the bushite Scum's attack on the Constitution, and justifies the TARP.
Wow, you're a policy genius. You've just discovered the shock doctrine.
slappywhite
I hope you learned a valuable lesson about our political system. Its okay the obama T-shirt is great at cleaning up spills.
According to Krugman, the "progress" isn't anything like the sign of a true recovery:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/the-bounce-and-the-revision-...
"We feel confident that as we deal with problems in the banking system that we're also fixing the non-banking sector when it comes to auto and credit card loans," Obama added.
He still doesn't get it. More debt is not the solution to too much debt.
"The audacity of endless bailouts" is a bestseller on Wall Street, I was told.
If Obama could run the kind of Presidency he talked about during the campaign, he would. But he can't do it. He's gambling with a $15 trillion economy and the lives of the whole world. Those are heavy dice to roll. And things are bad. Much much worse than they are saying publicly. Not just much worse, but much much worse. You don't delever a 40-to-1 bet the wrong way without a huge amount of pain. The only thing they can do now is to avoid a panic. Everything they say and do is to avoid a panic.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!
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Another interesting point -- regardless of which outcome we get (inflation vs. deflation), there is one inexorable result. Quality of life for the US will deteriorate.
Expectations have been inflated by a bubble in asset prices. Boomers have not saved enough for retirement, have not adequately funded pension funds, and have not paid taxes commensurate with what's been spent. Yet there is an expectation that obligations will continue to be met, and as a society we will continue to lead a privileged existence that we've grown accustomed to. This despite the fact that we consume a greater percentage of the world's resources than our labors justify (as indicated by the wage imbalances, and trade imbalances across countries).
The asset bubble that is now popping is the last bastion of the notion that we can somehow avoid the level playing field created by globalization. As the labor market finds equilibrium, so does quality of life. It is inevitable. Any hope of reversing the slide would involve either protectionism, or militarism. At some point we may need to decide whether we want to try to raise the level of all boats (bring up the emerging world), or slow our own decline by attempting to reverse globalization. In a resource constrained world, either option has its perils.
Let me be more explicit than snide -- if your policy framework can't handle a crisis and you need to resort to opaque fiat to rule during emergencies, you:
a) have a policy framework that sucks. You are throwing away the laws precisely when you need them most -- in a crisis when there are many differing opinions and people trying to assert their interests. You need better laws or you need to learn to ignore Chicken Little.
b) are going to succumb to manuifactured crises as each successive set of ambitious power-seekers seeks an excuse to hit the "do as you please" button and free themselves of policy constraints.
It's not law if it doesn't apply 100% of the time. If it applies 99% of the time except when you really want it to mean something else, it's Calvinball dressed up as law. Law means applies to everyone, even important people, even when they don't want it to.
in reference to
snacky, above, who claims that our 1st amendment rights are being ripped off by the fcc
---
rush is the canary in the coal mine
when the fcc yanks his chain then you know the air wave hazmat team has arrived
mt
Great progress was made on the memo describing the need for optimism.
"Economy recovers late 2009 or early 2010. "
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Nope. It will not return to any semblance of what it was. Not until we recognize and diagnose the underlying problems. And make some tough decisions.
What an arrogant jerk.
sorry repost from previous topic...
dryfly,
Say what?
Were they FORCED to bring the jobs back? No. Then how is that protectionism?
Sometimes you people don't think.
http://www.businessweek.com/blogs/money_politics/archives/2009/02/h-1b_v...
Everybody just think happy thoughts!
Happy Thoughts!
While we continue to stealth the shirt off your back and the lunch money from your pocket.
Just keep smiling you idiots.
sorry repost from previous topic...
dryfly,
Say what?
Were they FORCED to bring the jobs back? No. Then how is that protectionism?
Sometimes you people don't think.
http://www.businessweek.com/blogs/money_politics/archives/2009/02/h-1b_v...
I aologize for being such an idiot.
bow before the sheik, obamama
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An essay of when hope fades and people stop believing in the social system. Extremely well written.
I am going to hold my breath and wait for a segment on the daily show in which Jon Stewart replays this clip over and over again against a backdrop of shots of bandos, foreclosure signs and tent cities.
Rob Dawg (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:00am.
He still doesn't get it. More debt is not the solution to too much debt.
My nomination for phrase of the year is, "it'll come back."
Spoken kind of like guys in New Guinea would, upon seeing the big green metal bird full of white men fly away.
I hear it alot.
Gotta get to building that air strip. It'll come back.
I'd say "glimmers" is accurate. I'm of the belief that this is all a bear market rally. And the banks are still in trouble. And we obviously haven't seen the end of rising unemployment and housing foreclosures. But I didn't exactly predict the market would jump 26% in a month in March either.
As a matter of politics, though, it makes sense Obama would start talking about glimmers of hope. It encourages "optimism" while sounding vaguely realistic. I wouldn't expect the President to say, "You know, we spent $787 billion in stimulus and spent trillions in bank bailouts and the economy is hopelessly doomed."
In politics as in everthing else honesty is the best policy. But it's so tempting to equivocate ...
"The only thing they can do now is to avoid a panic. Everything they say and do is to avoid a panic."
Then they should be saying, "Move to the exits in an orderly fashion." Instead of, "Smoke? Fire? Nothing to worry about, it is all part of the show. Everything is contained."
Vote 3rd party next time, it is very satisfying. I flicked the dems and repubs the bird in the voting booth last year...literally as well as with my vote
it's easter weekend. the media team should have him emerge from a tomb sunday morning with a green shoots message. maybe use some wires for fake levitation. you know, for the true believers.
Washington state isn't seeing any "glimmers" yet:http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/fourth_quarter_retail_sales_dr.html
But given that Obama is asking for tens of billions more $$ to pay for military & who knows what other operations in Iraq & Afghanistan (he voted against at least one of these funding measures while in Congress) he must think the US is doing great & so able to fund who knows how many more years of that "cakewalk" in Iraq and the quagmire that defeated the British Empire &, later, the Soviet Union's military, in Afghanistan.
Like Molli Ivins said, "Nothin' but good times ahead."
Obama asks quick congressional OK of new war money
same as the old boss....spare me the Change,/b>
Obama asks quick congressional OK of new war money
same as the old boss....spare me the Change,/b>
Obama asks quick congressional OK of new war money
same as the old boss....spare me the Change,/b>
Obama asks quick congressional OK of new war money
same as the old boss....spare me the Change,/b>
"All the glimmers is not hope."
uhhhh ....sorry
"I flicked the dems and repubs the bird in the voting booth last year...literally as well as with my vote "
If for either (R) or (D) you choose, it makes no difference, other that which rights you lose.
wascomat,
if you want to get technical, when a human being rises from the dead we call them a zombie. jeebus was a zombie. this means easter is zombie jeebus day.
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.
Blackhalo (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 12:49pm.
"It works. "
In the short term. But in the end, banks still broke.
:: ::
More important than even 'broke banks': laid off workers. Until lay offs slow & hiring/rehiring exceeds RIFs nothing much really works. When GM goes *POOF* even if a 'controlled *POOF*'... there will be a huge wave of lay offs all across fly over. People out here think they have seen the worst - they have no idea what is about to hit them.
It is was and will be all about jobs.
Vote 3rd party next time, it is very satisfying. I flicked the dems and repubs the bird in the voting booth last year...literally as well as with my vote
If you think TPTB are counting votes accurately nowadays, you're a lot more trusting than me.
I can only think of two reasons he says this..
1. "The unicorns I talk to regularly said it's all going to be fine."
2. "My banker friends say things have never been better for them"
My money is on #2 and I'm just waiting for him to give a "you've never had it so good" speech 
char wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 10:57am.
Economy recovers late 2009 or early 2010.
http://railfax.transmatch.com/
Major Commodity Groups
Current Week Vs. 2008
Total, Grain, Chemicals, Food, Forest, Metals, Coal, Autos, Intermodal
(20.0%), (30.3%), (17.8%), (17.6%), (26.5%), (51.2%), (8.3%), (43.8%), (16.1%)
Parens indicate negative figures. Yes indeed, -51.2% year on year metals haulage for last week. It's already Q2.
That's gonna be a heck of a recovery.
When depression is the expectation, I guess even a severe recession is a glimmer of hope. Given all the federal spending and Fed money printing hitting the system over the next year, I'd expect a few green shoots to appear. I'd also expect them to die when economic winter re-asserts itself in the second half of 2010.
Hard to see anything with your head up your a-s!
Its always darkest before the light. The U.S. is poised for economic victory!
Blackhalo (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:16am.
If for either (R) or (D) you choose, it makes no difference, other that which rights you lose.
It was hard (I had to split my ticket between Constitution and Green party) but I didn't vote for a single major party candidate in November.
Ya'll must be doing all right if all you want to do is bitch about Obama. Once you start scrambling for a job and food you won't want to bother. Of course you wont have Internet either probably.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
Compared to this, the mere appearance of stupidity is beginning to look pretty good.
SEVENTEEN socialists in the House. Egads, traitors amongst us! Of course 17 isn't really nearly enough. If we had say, 100 or more, the nation would probably be in far better shape.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Bachus_says_theres_17_soc...
The Treasury Department says the federal budget deficit soared to $192.3 billion in March, and is near $1 trillion just halfway through the budget year, as costs of the financial bailout and recession mount.
Last month's deficit, a record for March, was significantly higher than the $150 billion that economists expected.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/10/washington/AP-Federal-Budget....
I think he means 'glimmers' literally. Glimmer, 'to shine faintly or unsteadily, to appear indistinctly... '
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glimmer
A lot of ambiguity there...
REBear - how is restrictions on H1B 'protectionist'? Protectionism is 'tariffs & quotas'... telling foreign workers they can't get subsidized US jobs is 'protectionism'? Man we have come a looooong way from what I used to think of as protectionism.
But hey - maybe foreigners are equally entitled to our bailouts by your book. Not by mine. By this logic Brazilian soybean farmers ought to be lobbying for US crop price supports too.
We might get protectionism out of this crisis - but this isn't it.
Wall street and hedge funds all feed on insider information to trade or manipulate. The results to the stress tests will be known by Monday and you will witness certain financial institutions tank. My other point is that the balance sheet, TARP money amounts and dividend slashing among all the other sundry financial telltales made the stress tests an exercise in political theater. Everyone knows who is in trouble and why. The govt just needed to manufacture proof that they were doing something about the banks and were justifie in keeping the money flowing to the FIRE industry.
One person can keep a secret. Many more than one involved in this farce.
"Vote 3rd party next time, it is very satisfying. I flicked the dems and repubs the bird in the voting booth last year...literally as well as with my vote"
Well you showed them, huh!?
"Until lay offs slow & hiring/rehiring exceeds RIFs nothing much really works."
Interestingly enough, the economy usually recovers "before" the net rehiring starts. That's why employment is a lagging indicator.
A glimmer of a hope of progress.
GM going poof will be bad for Michigan but good for whichever company takes their market share. GM will rise from the ashes, but probably not in Detroit...
You realize that song is about masturbation right? I guess it still makes sense in this context 
"Hard to see anything with your head up your a-s! "
Thanks for the tip; I've always wondered about that;)
Y'all are right. He shoulda said, "you know what? We're f*&%ed! Totally and completely 'effed. Buy guns and gold. Build shelters. Pull all your money out of the banks and the markets and go to the 'effin mattresses because there's no solution to the problem."
That's the kind of honesty I want out of my President! Not this glimmers of hope bullshit!
saagua wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:24am.
SEVENTEEN socialists in the House. Egads, traitors amongst us!
He only got 8% of McCarthy's list of communists.
You have to understand it's brought on by the gay marriage issue. Someone reminded him that the Republican party had previously branded womens suffrage and child labor laws communist and they wanted to see if it still worked. Gotta keep those latter day suffragettes in their place.
No - in the short term the banks are broke. In the long term they will go back to making some real nice cash by skimming off the top of the real economy. You can count on it. That doesn't mean buy bank stock - some could go BK - but as a whole they will survive and go back to their rightful place as previledged parasites.
No need for a stress test. The market knew long ago that Citi was dead. $1.00 stock price and all.
No - in the short term the banks are broke. In the long term they will go back to making some real nice cash by skimming off the top of the real economy. You can count on it. That doesn't mean buy bank stock - some could go BK - but as a whole they will survive and go back to their rightful place as previledged parasites.
Interestingly enough, the economy usually recovers "before" the net rehiring starts. That's why employment is a lagging indicator.
Unemployment is a lagging indicator, but the rate of change of unemployment is either a leading or coincident indicator and it is still increasing rapidly.
Where will they be rehiring? I am not trying to be a smart ass. I just do not see where the jobs will come from in big enough numbers to take us back below 8%
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the market dives face first into the Kool-Aid...
No - in the short term the banks are broke. In the long term they will go back to making some real nice cash by skimming off the top of the real economy. You can count on it. That doesn't mean buy bank stock - some could go BK - but as a whole they will survive and go back to their rightful place as previledged parasites.
Which is a real good thing for an economy that's desperate for sustenance.
gab wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:31am.
That's the kind of honesty I want out of my President! Not this glimmers of hope bullshit!
What, a straw man argument kind of honesty?
Then why are the markets flat today? Hmm?
I imagine some people are dropping out of the system in higher and higher number after coming to the conclusion the harder they I work the less will be the return on their time. The PTB recognizing this are pulling out all the stops to maintain the appearance of status quo. The state is in a fight for survival. Most people want things to remain the same as they grew up with and will go along with whatever seems expedient. All logical bets are off. Open war on the "misanthropes".
I think it's time for Churchillian quote:
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Unless of course GM and Chrysler go bellyup in which case a wave of layoffs and bankruptcies will sweep the nation like a plague of the most voracious locusts, devouring the few green shoots of the new growth and rendering as to a desert our hopes, our dreams and the fundamental strengths of our labors.
Sorry.. borrowing someone else's turn of hyperbola there
Everyone seems to be forgetting Ford isn't exactly on the up either !
.
Interestingly enough, the economy usually recovers "before" the net rehiring starts. That's why employment is a lagging indicator.
:: ::
Depends on how you define 'recover'... delta GDP turning 'positive' or overall GDP returning to previous high. If you define 'recovery' as the point where GDP stops falling - then 'yes' hiring lags that point. However that isn't really much of a tangible recovery. That is kind of like saying New Orleans is in recovery after the flood waters peaked and started receding... a lot different than water all gone, buildings being repaired and people returning. I think this recession is going to be severe enough that people will understand that employment doesn't lag a real recovery... it is coincidental.
BTW I would argue parts of the rust belt never fully recovered from the 70s and parts of rural flyover never fully recovered from 'farm crisis' in the 80s... I think the coastal bubbles will experience a similar 'recovery'.
RFFMC wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:06am.
What an arrogant jerk.
----
i dont think so...rather some one who has looked into the abyss
maybe the honorable thing to do would be for
the president , calmly, declaring that
the financial system is in total collapse
here at CR most of us can handle the truth
RFMC , can you handle the truth? can the general public?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2F4VcBmeo
mt
Obama and Ben were out back smoking green shoots. Giggling the whole way to the bank.
nova (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009
"Where will they be rehiring ?"
- Walmart
- Pr0n industry
- Government jobs for the rest
Unemployment is a leading indicator for (one of) the next waves of consumer credit defaults, especially credit cards - which, IIRC were preferentially paid off while mortgage defaults rates first began to spike - as the most highly leveraged specuvestors were flushed out. Now the job and income loss are eating into the well intentioned but marginally resourced segment...next comes the FWO's (Formerly Well Off).
Uncharted territory, or we weren't making the charts we have today the last time this happened. Things are, indeed, different this time.
GM going poof will be bad for Michigan but good for whichever company takes their market share. GM will rise from the ashes, but probably not in Detroit...
It won't even be in North America. Ditto for all the supply chain jobs.
anon wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:37am.
Open war on the "misanthropes".
A poorly founded but entirely predictable policy for a bankrupt state.
Obama would make a terrific sales manager at a bank. When he speaks, he uses lots of happy and catchy words but says nothing of actual substance.
"next comes the FWO's (Formerly Well Off)."
Well, I doubt they were, REALLY, well off. They may have thought they were, but the actual well off are also, well connected and will come out just fine. Barring, torches and pitchforks of course.
I am pleased to see the new post system is up and working. I gave up after the demise of haloscan. There is no sign of recovery out in the Northern Rockies. Layoffs just starting to bite. The stimulus will give us a few months of meth rush activity but will fade by the first of the year. Housing dead and business down.. We really do not need cheer leader B.S. from Washington. We need realistic appraisals and plans for long term solutions.
dryfly,
"GM will rise from the ashes, but probably not in Detroit...
It won't even be in North America. Ditto for all the supply chain jobs."
The Indians and Japanese left a decent chunk of the ruins of British Lehland jobs in England...kinda....
Nostrovia,
If Obama is seeing "glimmers" now - how black is it - that he really is seeing? I think the man knows what Bush voiced "This sucker is going down." He will spend and do everything to avoid that. He has to, because I think he is that kind of man. Plus, he knows how much the haters are waiting to come out of the woods and feed on his failure. Even if it is the failure of this country that in reality they are feeding on.
Oh, and it is going down
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
If the unemployment rate is 9.5% by the fall (not hard since we're at 8.5% already), its going to be a super ugly Christmas. It will make 2008's Christmas seem like boomtimes.
----
"no one is pricing in low, mid teens unemployment in any of their assumptions." - Meredith Whitney
Death is a lagging indicator.
Layoffs are always a sign of progress. They're the solution, not the problem.
In the short term. But in the end, banks still broke.
define broke. Just add some zeros here and there.
Parens indicate negative figures. Yes indeed, -51.2% year on year metals haulage for last week. It's already Q2.
TLM:
Be careful of those parens. FINRA has issued an official notice that negative return numbers must be designated by minus signs, not parens. FINRA believes that the average American investor might not understand that performance numbers in parens are negative (i.e., BAD).
Now that FINRA has solved this critical performance advertising issue, they will move on to address the minor problem of brokers offloading CDOs, CDOs-squared, derivatives, and other suitable assets on the investing public, small pension funds, and unsophisticated local governments.
NorkaWest
No one disagrees with broad, happy phrases:
We must rebuild.
We must be inclusive.
We must be fair.
We must support our troops.
We must support education.
blah blah blah
Being obtuse to the point of meaninglessness is not new. Weasel politicians have been doing it for a long time.
"build bridge to the future".
"morning again in america"
Costa Rica lookin' better every day! Hate the Prez couldn't even spare a moment to go visit Normandy. Hate to piss off ex rogue nations as well as current ones.....Give me a f'in break! Plus he bent over in the wrong direction for the Saudi King. Should have bent over and gave him free access to directly screw us,,,,,
saagua thanks for the link
Rep. Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, told a hometown crowd in Alabama today he believes there are several, (17), socialists in the House. snip... and he said he is worried that he is being steered too far (to the left) by the Congress: "Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists." according to the Birmingham News:
---
my God those damned socialist...17 of em !... dag gummitt overpowering the other 418 uv us God fearin loyal 'mericans
if ya let em get outta control well who knows might happen next
5 day work week...weekends...paid sick leave
parks, roads ,open to the public
social security, government fire fighters and police and then even public education
and then them socialists will even want to let blacks and women vote
it all started with those two notorious socialist (who marks and lennin?) no
Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt
mt
Nassim Taleb's rules for a more resilient financial system:.
1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks – and hence the most fragile – become the biggest.
2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.
4. Do not let someone making an "incentive" bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show "profits" while claiming to be "conservative". Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.
6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning . Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them "hedging" products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.
7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to "restore confidence". Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.
8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible "expert" advice for their retirement. Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).
10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the "Nobel" in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties. Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage.
Would be nice if even a few of these were implemented...
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC had ratings cut on some of their debt by Standard & Poor's as the automakers face government deadlines to restructure or file for bankruptcy.
GM's $4.5 billion senior secured revolving credit facility was reduced to CCC- from CCC, or nine grades below investment quality, S&P said today in a statement. S&P dropped its recovery rating to 2 from 1, saying lenders may recoup 70 percent to 90 percent in a default by Detroit-based GM.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
This is how the whole thing has gone. Periods of optimism in between reality checks.
He must be talking about Hope Arkansas
He must be talking about Hope Arkansas
Amazing amount of activity by Canadian Mining Companies looking at old gold claims. Someone thinks gold has a future or the Canadians are readying another onslaught of penny stock fraud. Could go either way.
I did not know there is any rating left to be cut with GM & Chrysler.
How timely.
The Indians and Japanese left a decent chunk of the ruins of British Lehland jobs in England...kinda....
They kept the service mechanics and repo men in place.
I got an email alert from SME yesterday that all is well in automotive - in China - they are now the worlds #1 car market NOT the US. It might have been glossed over in our MSM but believe me that detail was not missed by the folks planing strategy in Toyota City... or in Stuttgart, etc.
This by itself is NOT a terrible thing but folks have to know - the US auto gravy train is gone - left the station - it isn't coming back in anything resembling what it was.
Lol. What do you cut Chrysler's rating to anyway- dogshit?
Oh you silly little people, don't you know the Federal Reserve is OMNIPOTENT!
Give me the power to print the money and charge interest on it. I'll give every penny of interest I make back to the government that gives me the power to print it, making it look like I'm on the up and up.
In the background I'll choose(buy) all your leaders and have them pass all the laws that work in my favor and I couldn't give a shit what happens to the little people that gave me that power who rightfully had it in the first place.
As your world central banking overlord I will do my best to keep you servants on the hamster wheel of life as best I can because that's how I derive and usurp the power for myself. I love my Omnipotence.
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Learn the 7TH Amendment maggot!
Red Beckman - Fully Informed Jury
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7385583011526915030&hl=en
NorkaWest (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:50am.
TLM:
Be careful of those parens. FINRA has issued an official notice that negative return numbers must be designated by minus signs, not parens. FINRA believes that the average American investor might not understand that performance numbers in parens are negative (i.e., BAD).
"By the time the law showed up, I was long gone... but the sheriff didn't let me down. He investigated the whole thing... then arrested the hooker."
--Last Man Standing
Yancey Ward wrote
"Lol. What do you cut Chrysler's rating to anyway- dogshit?'
Is there a rating for "Purchasers need to see psychological help." ?
This by itself is NOT a terrible thing but folks have to know - the US auto gravy train is gone - left the station - it isn't coming back in anything resembling what it was.
Those towns, you know the ones near the Nissan plant, the Toyota plant - they ain't coming back either. Good bye Saturn.
You go downwind of most factorys in the US and you can smell that smell. Nice clean air. Smells just like shutdowns
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
dryfly,
But hey - maybe foreigners are equally entitled to our bailouts by your book. Not by mine.
I'm not saying whatever is happening is bad. All i'm trying to say is that the brotherly love shown at the g-20 submit was a hog wash.
At the G20 there was uproar over French 'protectionism' because France was moving 400 jobs from Slovenia to France.
The European Commission said it would seek urgent clarification.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7955389.stm
Now we have 2000 jobs coming back to the US. Will the G20 ask for an urgent clarification?
Official Hope = Wall Streeters get their bonuses.
.
Those towns, you know the ones near the Nissan plant, the Toyota plant - they ain't coming back either. Good bye Saturn.
You go downwind of most factorys in the US and you can smell that smell. Nice clean air. Smells just like shutdowns
.
Maybe the nice folks in Alabama & Tennessee can learn to flip condos - worked out well for Cali, Florida & Las Vegas.
Michael,
Was anyone outside your window last night? Real late?
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
Minimum wage or Master degrees - nothing in the middle.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
Again REBear - insisting US subsidized jobs be done by US citizens ISN'T protectionism. You will know protectionism when you see it - it won't be back door or 'hidden'.
I understand the angst some have about protectionism... but this isn't it. Not yet. Not even close.
Just sayin'...
excellent point- if this was Bush every "comic" would be laughing at what a rube he is and how "out of touch with reality" he is.
But with King O, it is just more "hope and worthless change"
Rob Dawg (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:00am.
"We feel confident that as we deal with problems in the banking system that we're also fixing the non-banking sector when it comes to auto and credit card loans," Obama added.
He still doesn't get it. More debt is not the solution to too much debt.
And he thinks that "auto and credit card loans" are the "non-banking sector".
money man wrote 1151
"Hate the Prez couldn't even spare a moment to go visit Normandy"
---
how about you set the honesty example you claim you want so badly from the prez
fess up , obama could visit every major WWII battlefield in france, germany and italy
and you would not be satisfied
my guess is you would say he's just pandering or putting on a show
(anyone remember reagan visiting bitberg and talking about how he, reagan fought in WWII...huh?)
mt
.
Minimum wage or Master degrees - nothing in the middle.
So what is the minimum wage for a masters degree?
[/snark]
Nova,
Do you believe it? I've been trying to post that comment on Huffington Post, tried 3 times so far and they won't let it go through.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn the 7TH Amendment maggot!
Red Beckman - Fully Informed Jury
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7385583011526915030&hl=en
the Libs are kings of the "strawman argument". Pay attention to EVERYTHING that they say-
it is always "well we have to spend at least 17 trillion dollars to save us, not like the evil republicans who want to DO NOTHING and leave you in poverty!!" King O is the master of putting up false straw men to then knock down..
Willem Buiter's Wednesday post is pretty comprehensive as to where we actually stand at present and what the prospects are.
Probably linked here before - worth a look if you haven't read. It's a broader view than we generally indulge in here.
http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/04/the-green-shoots-are-weeds-growing...
new thread
.............................
Base hits win ballgames.
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
[swamp otis (member) wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:01am.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!! ]
LOL, exactly the thought that came to mind when I read the post. You beat me to it.
ps i have written to the prez and said period, that he has caved to the wall street bankstas that got us in this mess and must change course
i have also written the same to 9th congressional district congressman adam smith (no pun intended) who was obamas state campaign chair)
i agree with krugman re the bank bailout, and i believe tarp is outrageous and wrong
mt
"Costa Rica lookin' better every day!"
It'd have to look a whole lot better before I'd move there. Nice place to lie on the beach and drink, but the infrastructure sucks, the food is marginal, and everything they don't make there costs as much as here. One plus -- no need for Xtreme Sports if you're an adrenalin junkie. Just drive the highway from Puntarenas to San Jose once a week. At night. In the rain. Just you and all those bloody trucks on a two-lane road with no centerline and a steep grade. Yowza.
I'm not putting the place down. They do a lot with what they've got. But when you're talking second-world country, Costa Rica is more what you're talking than America. We have some second-world aspects, because we're Puritans and think people should suffer when they have misfortunes (God planned it that way, so they probably deserved it). But we'd have an awfully long way to fall before we were Costa Rica.
You admitted you donated money to Obama out of loathing of conservative republicans. Wow, astonishing.
Well then, thanks for being honest, but you deserve whatever comes as a result of donating for such reasons.
Obama isn't liberal. "Liberals" aren't really liberal anymore...you're all just a bunch of control freak nanny statists who loath everything that doesn't fit into your sterile little uptight lifestyles.
The green shoots are weeds growing through the rubble in the ruins of the global economy
For burnside:
A few years ago when we were all wondering if we were in recession, going into recession or still farting through silk I used to ask CR if it 'looked like a recession' out his way in Cali... I told him [others here] it didn't look like one to me - not yet. He said 'no' back then too.
Others would then ask so what does a recession look like to you 'older guys'... I told them 'tumble weeds in parking lots'. That was my recollection of the farm crisis 'non-recession' I experienced up front and friendly. I would call on factories and half the plants in the rural industrial parks I passed through were abandoned for YEARS on end with tumble weed growing up through the rubble of what was once well maintained parking lots. Same with the retail establishments... even if still open & operating their budgets were so small they didn't allocate 'labor' to spray Round Up on the farther flung sections of parking lot... and not enough customer traffic to wear the tumble weeds down... only the areas near the door were weed free and that from the limited traffic the stores still got.
So when Buiter says the current 'recovery' is just weeds growing through rubble tells me the man knows & recognizes a recession when he sees one.
BTW - I'll be looking for tumble weeds this summer - my number one indicator things are getting worse. And from what I can tell it isn't a lagging indicator either - concurrent & coincidental all the way. Well - except for seasonal 'adjustment'... they haven't sprouted up here on the northern plains just yet.
Hey how is NYC doing with its layoffs? Unions gotta be cooperating on that too, just like GM,
Nova needs to add tumbleweeds to his opus.
Wow.
Obama's comments are a real Rorschach test, aren't they?
Everyone pretty much reads what they want into it. ....
If you are very pessimistic and you hate Obama, then you think he's a pathetic Pollyanna.
If you are very pessimistic and you love Obama, then you think he's doing the wise thing politically by bucking up people's spirits.
If you are optimistic, then you think Obama just declared the recession over and proclaimed prosperity for all time.
Read it again. Slowly. With your mind open. "glimmers" means faint and fleeting. "Hope" means stop walling in your self pity.
"Stressed" means buckle up and hold on.
I liked O and I'm bewildered.
We are approaching the event horizon.
He has to say something. It can't be tooo bad.
Hence, it is meaningless.
Obama is a plant, bought and paid for Bank shill. Period. End of story.
Deep recessions are a convenient way to crush labor and drive down living standards (even lower) for 80% of the populace. Standard of living will be measured relative to that in China. The 2 probably won't cross paths, but approach each other assymptotically as we suffer declines and they stumble...
If BS were green this lying little eel would be an 18 hole golf course. Is there anything about which he hasn't vascillated or turned tail?
hey cr, we are seeing glimmers of hope. what does the man known as obamanation talking about ?
Well my off the cuff comment seems to have generated a tribute handle.
Squeeze me,
I was referring to property as in "land". I fully support individual ownership of personal hygiene products, undergarments, and printing presses (although I would make the argument that "printing presses" in the USA are largely controlled by oligarchs). I happen to believe that a functioning society owes its citizens certain human rights: shelter (e.g. housing), sustenance, access to education, access to medical care, due process, freedom of expression etc. Owning property is an economic right *not* a human right. In fact, one could argue that land *ownership* is monopolistic and anti-free market. For example, leases (e.g. 99 year leases) are another widely used way to allocate land without perpetuating an entrenched rent-seeking elite.
"Maybe the nice folks in Alabama & Tennessee can learn to flip condos - worked out well for Cali, Florida & Las Vegas. "
So.....you think with GM and Xler going tits up, there still won't be any demand for foreign cars assembled in the deep South? I'd have a different take on that. I'd suggest that that's where the car industry will be in 5-10 years, unless the unions move in, and then it'll be somewhere else. Vancouver?
" 8 ball wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 4:09pm.
hey cr, we are seeing glimmers of hope. "
The future is uncertain......
Sure Pres. O can say that progress is being made. He's using the banks as fronts for manipulating the stock market, everyone piles in as the market goes up on back room deals using dark pools to buy each other's stocks, driving the indexes (falsely) higher.
If unemployment is suggested to climb to 9.8% by mid 2010, how is there to be progress? or will those numbers be skewed also for the good of the President's image?
I'm so disgusted by the ineptitude and lack of gravitas in this administration regarding anything they propose. Its like they don't care about the consequences, the trade offs for any of the President's decisions.
So when he says he sees 'progress', I think he's talking BS.
"Anyone who is doing anything sensible right now is either losing money or is out of the market entirely." These are the words of a quant trader, who is seeing something scary in the capital markets.
Anyone else seeing this?
CR?
"After a caller said he didn't see anybody spending less money than usual, Steele replied: "I've heard a number of people say that across the country. [LAUGHTER] The malls are just as packed on Saturday. [LAUGHTER]"
That's Michael Steele, current head of the Republican party.
That's even better than "glimmers of hope." That's just like no slowdown at all! And he should know better than the President who's isolated in the WH.
It is absolutely beyond me how anyone can take this guy seriously.
It isn't THIS president who scares me.
It is the one coming (up).
Remember the lessons we should have learned from Weimar.
GoinSouth writes:"I aologize for being such an idiot."
No apology necessary. You're in good company.
You can bash the prez all you like. (Everyone including me likes to do it.) However it is really hard to ignore the string of positive news yesterday...
http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/04/thursdays-string-of-positives-l...
If I were in the oval office, I'd point to those glimmer too.
Where will they be rehiring? I am not trying to be a smart ass. I just do not see where the jobs will come from in big enough numbers to take us back below 8%
Field hands?
The negativity and heartlessness here blows my mind. If you were Prez, what would you do? I'd shudder to think. What do you expect from one man? He has to deal with a recalcitrant opposition in Congress, and no help at all from about half the population, all of whom wish him ill, or worse. Imagine the alternative, if you will. Hard line, free market, boot-strap fundamentalism. That old-time religion. You're on your own, Bub. From the sound of many of the commenters here, that would be a welcome alternative. Well, imagine yourself needing a helping hand, especially if you are a child, or elderly, or you lost your job, or there was a death in your family, hopefully not ill-timed, or any of the many set-backs that occur to all of us during the course of a lifetime. To whom would you turn for help, especially if you had no family, or anyone who gave a s#it about you at all? Would you just politely roll over and die? Or would you turn to crime? Or would you perhaps turn to the State, of which you are a citizen, and maybe expect a helping hand? .... Fu*k your rebuttals. You'd bitch no matter what. All you complainers will come to the end of your rope someday, I guarantee it, and the reality is you will be well taken care of by the more positive members of our society, and perhaps you might even be grateful for their assistance, though it won't be expected of you. Whatever. Until you grasp what life on this planet means, and is, (admittedly, in my mind, an evolutionary accident, for which I am intensly grateful) and how all life is interdependent, and basically dependent on what you are able to contribute to it, you will be a drag on the rest of us, who are trying to make life here on earth sustainable for everyone, now and in the future. Too hyperbolic? KMA. In the meantime, take whatever advantage you can, for all the good it'll do you. Joke's on you.
That's great. Any "glimmers of change" yet?
- Nemo