I love the smell of BFF on a hazy friday afternoon! 
..............
bANK fAILURE wrote on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 2:33pm.
DRINK
I love the smell of BFF on a hazy friday afternoon!
..............
If I say this bank is safe to deposit in, it's safe to deposit in!
So let me get this straight the FED wont release the stress test results but they will release the comments that they received on the TARP. We just passed comedy folks... Its now a f'in joke... (On US!)
....................
Stupid movie. The real story is better
LOL! Who's going to go next, First National Panic Bank?
Admittedly, both versions of the movie were pretty stupid, but DeNiro was quite entertainingly creepy in the remake.
DRINK
"Admittedly, both versions of the movie were pretty stupid, but DeNiro was quite entertainingly creepy in the remake."
This isn't a movie we're living through.
We just inherited a perfectly good, hardly used, modern television set. All we need to do is call the cable company and have it connected. I thought about it for weeks. We decided that it would be a waste of time. Maybe a waste of life. As a society we are up to our ears in fiction. We're sinking in it as if it were quicksand. We need to make it to terra firma and crawl out.
Pavel Chichikov
CR what do you think about Friday Retail Sales???
nades started it.
Sheila Bair is sing the operatta HMS Pinafore as we speeak.
This must be the earliest announcement. Something to do with the holiday or a lot of banks closing today?
Why would you name a bank like that?
Oh noes. Beranke and Geitner fear panic above all (well, all but preserving mega banks that are dead.)
So the Cape Fear and Panic Bank fails on Easter weekend and is resurrected. Not goot.
When will bank failures be made into Hollywood horror flicks? Bank Zombies, Wide-eyed paniced investors, bailouts dripping with taxpayer blood, and the police that are in on the slaughter.
[mental image of safety deposit boxes each containing one body part]
BFF on Good Friday, no less.
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/Lincoln.html
Who edits Snopes? Is it like Wiki and subject to change with prejudice? I'm just saying
(that I sound like Michael).
CR,
I have to say that the 'event' we are living through has become less scary and more farcical with every passing day.
It has changed from "oh no, the ship has hit a iceberg" to "why are these clowns rearranging the deck chair and playing music"
Orlov sounds like Kunstler, but more entertaining:
We are making an effort to save financial institutions, which are the ultimate ephemera of industrial civilization, ... It is as if the doctors decided to only try to save persistent vegetative quadriplegics with terminal cancer, or if the environmentalists decided that the endangered species list only has room for one animal: the vampire bat. It would make much more sense to try to save small businesses, such as family businesses that serve local communities, because there is a good chance that they will find a use in the future, or at least facilitate the transition. Instead, we are squandering the remaining resources on the various dinosaurs of the industrial age.
Sorry CR I was talking about the Indv. retail Comps. But we will see Tuesday
Hey, I'm up for time-zone bank failure chimes! One failure per time zone (grouping AK and HI into one). But clearly FDIC needs to up their productivity to at least two per week. Hump Day-BF would be a good addition to TGIF-BF.
I'm also disappointed that cable hasn't done a reality series for the bank closure epidemic.
Well-said, Pavel. More than 20 years ago, there was a book about this called "Amusing Ourselves to Death." It's probably rather dated, being pre-Internet and all, but the author, Neil Postman, had the right idea.
Spring in Wilmington
Cape Fear goes down on Friday
Easter bunnies weep.
I'm not afraid to deposit this money!
OT: Misers Rule
Why would you name a bank like that?
I dunno. Prescient foreshadowing, perhaps?
I'm with Pavel: "This isn't a movie we're living through."
Entertainment remains the "opiate of the masses", and if you can be confident that you'll make it if you just ignore reality long enough, it's okay, but the current times seem to call for more grouch-ing and less couch-ing.
We killed off our cable TV a couple years ago. Don't even watch broadcast. We get our escape with the occasional virtually free movie picked up off the shelves at the Public Library. (Virtually because (a) we pay taxes for the Library and (b) we pay gas & wear/tear on the car to get there. But we pick up about 20 books to read at the same time.)
BTW, if you take time to get involved in what's going on around you, it turns out that city council meetings and school board meetings have far more drama than anything on TV, especially because the decisions being made affect people you actually know.
My site: http://ic4mg.com
Too small to receive a stress test. So sad.
It would appear that my friends at First Federal drew the short straw.
I told you guys so!
I worked with one of the directors and he would steal the gold teeth out of his dead grandma's mouth. Not surprising for a banker/developer I guess. Now I will go collect on a bet with my wife although I had all of '09 to win.
This was predictable.
Jim
Maybe hollywood can make a film and cast R Deniro ? Call it Cape Fear!
Seized credit union planned to understate loss
An external analysis by Western Corporate (WesCorp) Federal Credit Union resulted in a credit loss estimate more than $500 million greater than WesCorp's internal estimates, the credit union regulator said.
Senior managers at WesCorp were prepared to report an impairment figure for certain securities as of December 31 that was based on the lower internal estimate, the National Credit Union Administration said.
...
Fryzel told Reuters last month that managers at the seized credit unions were overly optimistic about the value of mortgage-backed securities they held.
"Some information was not as accurate as it could have been," Fryzel said about the institutions' asset valuations and loss figures. He also said the NCUA had not yet seen signs of fraud.
Someone needs to learn the difference between precision and accuracy. If the information was not as accurate as it could have been, that is by definition deceit and fraud.
History tells us
there is but nothing to fear
but Cape Fear itself
I thought about it for weeks. We decided that it would be a waste of time.
Yup, even my wife is the decisive one.
If you want to go the whole Easter route, we should get three banks on the cross today: and only one of them comes back.
Went to Maundy Thursday service yesterday night; when it's over they strip down the altar and leave only the cross. So everybody remembers what it's all about. The banks have yet to have their Maundy Thursday;
I'm also disappointed that cable hasn't done a reality series for the bank closure epidemic.
"Desperate Sheila"...
One would think this would also suggest something about trying to drive mortgage rates down:
Fed Economists Say Mortgage Changes May Not Stem Foreclosures
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aQkQlIjl5s1k
This for Gavshire and all those with weepy puts...
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/04/incredibly-shrinking-market-liquid...
This is great news! I was betting on a bank failure today, even though I'm leaving early. Good Friday, y'know.... and remember..... "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life!"
If you enjoy Dmitry Orlov, you would also probably like thomas Homer-Dixon and "The Upside of Down"
It is an interesting take on the mechanics of how a social system falls apart and what it looks like.
From bondgrrl's link...
Job losses and falling home prices have a bigger impact on delinquencies than mortgage terms, and modifications aren't necessarily a better deal for investors than foreclosures, according to a paper by two current and one former economist at the Boston Fed Bank and one Atlanta Fed researcher.
hoocoodanode
"Well-said, Pavel. More than 20 years ago, there was a book about this called "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
For me, one of the top ten books I have ever read. It helps make sense as to how we ever got into this mess in the first place. A must read for anyone interested in modern media, the dumbing down of western societies, and sociology in general. Neil Postman is a very smart cat.
Here is the Fed paper on foreclosures
http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/ppdp/2009/ppdp0902.pdf
Well, it turns out I have users besides myself! Therefore:
Halo-ized commens at http://users.thelink.net/bobn/CR
No javascript.
No left "gutter".
Deadly dull boring html that should work in anything (phones).
"It is an interesting take on the mechanics of how a social system falls apart and what it looks like."
Try 'Blood River', by Tim Butcher.
A trip down the Congo in the recent DRC.
We'll never fall that far, right?
Pavel Chichikov
"I thought about it for weeks. We decided that it would be a waste of time.
Yup, even my wife is the decisive one."
Yes, quite often I'll come to a decision because I know my wife will say it's the right one. She is very much brighter than I am, but she's nice about it.
Pavel Chichikov
First from the BB.
Past thread but same problem. Looks like tax reciepts hastens our demise.
And that is why marriage kills the ability to innovate. If you want to be imprisoned in a box of your own creation, that is your choice.
//Yes, quite often I'll come to a decision because I know my wife will say it's the right one. She is very much brighter than I am, but she's nice about it.
Pavel Chichikov//
Where are the investigations and indictments? With all these failures there MUST be some fraud involved - sweetheart deals to insiders and the like. Unfortunately, what I consider fraud is probably legal and business as usual. I also suspect insiders don't lose a penny of their own money in these failures.
But one would expect at least some perp walks.
Jim
"Well, it turns out I have users besides myself!
bobn,
I have your site bookmarked and almost always read CR comments there. I use hoocoodanode.org to post comments.
Don't forget the ever-popular favorite - Mad Max!
Why we must burn ivy leaguers. It is not that others are not fraudulent, it is just that ivy league fraud and hubris hurts more people.
__________________
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: March 19, 2009
An influential Harvard child psychiatrist told the drug giant Johnson & Johnson that planned studies of its medicines in children would yield results benefiting the company, according to court documents dating over several years that the psychiatrist wants sealed.
The psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, outlined plans to test Johnson & Johnson's drugs in presentations to company executives. One slide referred to a proposed trial in preschool children of risperidone, an antipsychotic drug made by the drug company. The trial, the slide stated, "will support the safety and effectiveness of risperidone in this age group."
Extract
//In a contentious Feb. 26 deposition between Dr. Biederman and lawyers for the states, he was asked what rank he held at Harvard. "Full professor," he answered.
"What's after that?" asked a lawyer, Fletch Trammell.
"God," Dr. Biederman responded.
"Did you say God?" Mr. Trammell asked.
"Yeah," Dr. Biederman said.//
"Instead, the government should consider alternatives such as loans to homeowners to bridge the loss of income for one or two years caused by unemployment, or helping borrowers become renters,"
like this will ever happen.
(from bond girls link above)
Bloomberg article on Fed Paper (noted above):
Fed Economists Say Mortgage Changes May Not Stem Foreclosures
By Scott Lanman
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Policies aimed at easing home-loan terms for troubled borrowers may not be as effective in preventing foreclosures as more-direct aid to homeowners, Federal Reserve economists found.
Job losses and falling home prices have a bigger impact on delinquencies than mortgage terms, and modifications aren't necessarily a better deal for investors than foreclosures, according to a paper by two current and one former economist at the Boston Fed Bank and one Atlanta Fed researcher.
The conclusion poses a challenge to housing advocates and to some extent the prevailing views of President Barack Obama's administration, Fed officials and other U.S. regulators. Obama announced a $75 billion plan in February that concentrates on refinancing or modifying loans for as many as 9 million homeowners.
"One of the most influential strands of thought contends that the crisis can be attenuated by changing the terms of 'unaffordable' mortgages," the economists said in the paper posted on the Boston Fed's Web site today. Yet policies aimed at reducing a borrower's debt-to-income ratio "face important hurdles in addressing the housing crisis," the authors said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQkQlIjl5s1k&refer=home
"The trial, the slide stated, "will support the safety and effectiveness of risperidone in this age group."
How scientific! [irony].
["Full professor," he answered.
"What's after that?" asked a lawyer, Fletch Trammell.
"God," Dr. Biederman responded.
"Did you say God?" Mr. Trammell asked.
"Yeah," Dr. Biederman said.// ]
I wonder what effect he has on his patients.
Pavel Chichikov
Why wasn't the fed jumping up and down screaming against the investment banks leveraging up to 30 to one? Would you let your brother take 30 times his net worth and go to Vegas and play the slots? Then borrow to bail him out? Then would you pay interest on that borrowed money for the rest of your life? These guys have ripped us off more than all the crime syndicates in the world.
"I wonder what effect he has on his patients."
Well, if his patients worship at the altar of all that is Harvard...
That paper is something else.
I am very happy to read the comments about Neil Postman and the recognition of the TV as a 'plug-in drug.' OT perhaps, but when I see a human glued to the tube for hours, I can't help but think that it isn't 'natural' (whatever that means). What good could possibly come from watching corporate crap?
How much more of Obama's punishment can bucky possibly withstand ?
Mr. Bucky just has to be the tallest fiat currrency in the world, even if it shrinks.
[helping borrowers become renters]
From Bush's, "Ownership Society" to Obama's, "Renters Society". Surely this is the Progress he was suggesting today.
Data point: Talking with coworkers today (2 plus me = 3), holiday staffing, always good for openness.
Coworker #1 hasn't paid on 1 credit card for 6 months (hasn't paid on 2 others for 3 months) and just missed mortgage payment last month for first time after using all income to make Countrywiide happy. Extenuating circumstances, of course (husband medical issues and totaled one of their cars - not related, though. Totaled the car separate from med issues). He has no job so she's it; he won't have one anytime soon either.
Coworker's income alone is what some may call middle-class income and they are that far behind. No huge house, no really big car payments or other outrageous expenses to speak of. Between the medical co-pays (with insurance, mind), mortgage, one working car (a beater at that), they're just staving off BK.
Lotta folks like that I hear talking in the hallways of our fairly large corporate real estate building coming and going on the elevators, hallways, etc.
Not good.
Re: Fed paper
I understand why they focus on the "affordability" aspect - the policy response has been dominated by the idea that things would improve if mortgages were made more affordable. This is a response to variable rate mortgages and high resets. But it is really one-dimensional in that it lacks the "skin in the game" comparison. They could have improved it with some discussion of the optionality of mortgages with low down payments.
I am happy to see someone challenge the idea of affordability, however.
I have complained abou the lack of BFs. Cause that was the promise form Paulson.
I think the CRE stuff will hit the fan in Q3 - this is when regionals will tank. So I'll be patient.
Protest the financial system's control of our government Sat 4/11:
Biederman got extra attention because his latest 'clinical trial' involved giving three psychotropic drugs (simultaneously) to 2 year olds.
What can I say..
MY FIL gets his water from a well. He pays for someone to come out and test it every 6 months. It costs $143.00 for the test. For the first time in years the company was able to come at a time convienent for him; They then called to ask if they could come 2 hours early. Why? Cancelations. He talked to the guy and business is dropping off. No one is calling to get their water tested this year.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
I am going to teach you the meaning of commitment. Fourteen years ago I was forced to make a commitment to an eight by nine cell, now you are going to be forced to make a commitment. You could say I'm hear to save you.
Well, that is a glimmer of shiny black light
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. budget deficit surged in March as tax payments by companies and individuals dropped and the government spent more to rescue banks and revive the economy.
The excess of spending over revenue climbed to $192.3 billion, compared with a gap of $48.2 billion in the same month a year earlier. Spending increased to $321.2 billion, and revenue fell 28 percent to $129 billion.
The deficit six months into the 2009 fiscal year already exceeds the record set in the entire previous year. Rising job losses and plunging corporate profits are cutting into tax receipts, while the government commits billions of dollars to bolster an economy in its second year of a recession.
"It's going to be real ugly," said Scott Anderson, a senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis. "We have just seen a collapse in revenue, and expenditures are up. Given the bailouts and the stimulus packages, that is likely to continue." Anderson projected the deficit will jump to almost $2 trillion this fiscal year.
http://afterthecrash.net - Home of the Doomer Story Portal and Other Stuff
"I am very happy to read the comments about Neil Postman and the recognition of the TV as a 'plug-in drug.'"
His point is far more insidious than that. It is that since the advent of paid advertising, media has had to compete for audience thus necessitating the need to be "entertaining" to ensure this end. The problem with this is that being entertaining and being truly informative are often mutually incompatible. Being entertaining will pay the network's bills and being dry, complicated, and informative will not. His thesis is that as a society we have by and large now come to expect information to be presented to us in an entertaining form and will ignore it if it is not. In doing so we have lost the ability to make informed decisions for ourselves based on the conclusions drawn from unbiased information and logic. Thus the title, "Entertaining ourselves to death.".
Well I'm frequently glued to CR for long stretches of time.
Is that bad?
sorry, "Amusing ourselves to death"
HaHa ooops
And yeah, Terry MI is Merritt Island.
Fight with the log in stuff. I lost.
So now I have an alter ego.
Damn the retards at IMDB. I try to copy/paste a strangely relevant Max Cady quote and those mouth-breathers can't even distinguish "hear" from "here". Sigh.
If this was really "GOOD" BFF, C and BAC would just die simultaneously. When is Sheila gonna get around to to hiring enuf troopz?
energyecon,
Fascinating post by TD -- thanks for posting that. Another story that ties into that: "Big liquidation triggers hedge-fund turmoil": http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/liquidation-big-portfolio-triggers-turmoil/story.aspx?guid={9562090F-2CC0-4EE2-ACBF-2688F60061DA}
I'm very skeptical of the recent runup in financials. Certainly to the point of believing some of the wilder theories of manipulation that's been going on lately. The recent pump job has coincided with unprecedented government announcements, positive media spin, followed by coordinated dubious earnings announcements (wtf was the deal with the WFC preannouncement?). But I'm also of the opinion that the government is hell bent on pumping up the markets, aiding the banks to recapitalize via secondary offerings. Who's to say the insanity can't continue? I have a hard time believing they would work this hard (if conspiracy theories are true) only to allow the markets to crash before the banks successfully raise cash.
Interesting to watch how the next couple weeks plays out...
Umm, the Harvard guy sounds loathsome.
But little kids do get sick, and dosage on little kids could be quite different from adults.
I don't know what the answer is but I do know that if I had a sick little kid and there was an adult drug that helped the same condition, I'd like the doc to have some idea of whether it worked in kids or not, and what the dosage was.
I'm also disappointed that cable hasn't done a reality series for the bank closure epidemic.
"Desperate Sheila"...
Your'e on to something Dry, I would add to that and name it "Desperately Seeking Sheila"
LawyerLiz,
This link is for you, by the way. If like 18 million people haven't already clued you in on the whole "tea-bagging" thing.
http://gawker.com/5206547/best-of-rachel-maddows-teabagging-jokes
You really need to bookmark urbandictionary.com, btw.
lawyerlizinMI,
Do you think that giving multiple anti-psychotic drugs to 2 year olds with ADD is a good idea? That is what he was doing..
Sadly the use of multiple anti-psychotic drugs to control difficult behavior in the absence of obvious mental illness or brain damage is quite fashionable nowadays.
China skyscraper update
They are still announcing new 'supertalls' (taller than 300m/1000ft, project price tag in $bn) every week. A few projects on hold/cancelled, only if the developer is not from China. They are literally building a new NYC about every few months and consideration for who the tenants might be ranks below what carpet or chandelier to install.
Here is a summary of CRE grade A vacancy back in 2007
other sites that I know of require registration, but since that summary construction has led demand in absolute terms of new supply and take up. I'm willing to bet a lot of tenants hoarded space as a form of investment/real estate price hedge and now not only do not need that extra space, but they will be using space more efficiently in order to sublease. Regular RE bubble stuff, but on a massive scale
double-post redaction
They wander. They settle. They prosper and grow. The existing power structure through fear reacts to suppress.
This was the 22nd bank to fail this year also 47 from start of year 2008.
Nobody know how many more banks are going to fail. Prediction is in hundreds of bank.
I found list of failed banks and the map of where the banks are failing on www.portalseven.com
The url is
Map of failed banks
List of banks failed in 2009
Do check it.
Pravin
Yes, yes, yes, I know what tea bagging is and don't need to be told ONE MORE TIME.
And I was making a general statement of treating little kids with drugs, and gathering knowledge about it.
And I don't know what the answer is and don't think there is any good answer.
nova,
Your father in law should look at installing a UV system to treat his water. Brilliant stuff
Anyone know of a paper that looks at how much government spending contracts when it doesn't happen by choice (lack of foreign appetite for debt, currency debasement/hyperinflation)
Wondering what kind of GDP shock that would be if it happened in the US
The water testers may not be busy, but my cat washer is.
The poor old cat is 17 (a post hurricane Andrew cat), and doesn't wash himself much anymore.
Was waiting for warm weather to get him a, you should excuse the expression, poodle cut. And get him a bath. Groomer Busy or on vacation for a couple of weeks.
double-post redaction
We need a semi-fed speak acronym for that... a DPR... for short.
New post
Here's a bank that is teetering:
Peoples First Community Bank
I have some relevant numbers here:
http://realpropertyalpha.com/2009/04/06/peoples-first-community-bank-cel...
John Reeder
http://realpropertyalpha.com
Also forgot that I did a flash animation that shows bank capitalization problems by state.
http://realpropertyalpha.com/2009/02/26/bank-capitalization-problems-by-...
Hope you like it.
John Reeder
http://realpropertyalpha.com
bob mitchum chairman
rob de niro ceo
nik nolte - moody´s sales rep
I have this image of Sideshow Bob and twenty rakes.
Is depression here or not? not very clear. But if you look at the past history recessions and depressions come and go. (see for instance,
http://www.recessioninfocenter.com
Economies go through cycles and recession is part of the cycle. Too much government interference can backfire
Nemo, hurry up... I'm getting anxious