here we go guys
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 18 October 2007 23:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2007/10/more-inflation.html
personally I'm applying for a civil servant position ASAP
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 18 October 2007 23:45 (2 years ago) Permalink
Just FYI, during the 1930s depression, many civil servants were paid with vouchers rather than cash, because local governments were unable to collect property taxes and their receipts fell into the shitbin.
― Aimless, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
Economy's doing poorly enough as it stands, why do we deliberately want to roll it into the shitbin?
― Abbott, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
Because that way Hillary can rescue us all.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
lol property taxes
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
shitbin's a great word, BTW.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:20 (2 years ago) Permalink
you been loving my thread titles lately
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
i came to this country some time ago with little more than a crippling debt burden in GB Pounds and the shirt on my back. i used to have to send back $1,200 each month to pay off my UK debt, and now I'm sending back over $1,400 to cover the same amount of debt repayment. that's two and a half thousand dollars disappearing from my tiny disposable income every year, for no explicable reason. i *heart* the decline of the US economy.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:27 (2 years ago) Permalink
anyway why start this thread now because the bit where ritholtz points out that domino's pizza can't print new menus fast enough to keep up with inflation was pretty fucking amazing
I wish rasheed wallace was still around to show us the latest and greatest exploding bubble blogs
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:28 (2 years ago) Permalink
wow Roberto that was some shitty timing, that sucks
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:29 (2 years ago) Permalink
This was in the paper today:
Mortgage defaults
Hit an annual rate of 1.5 million in September. That compares with 900,000 last year from fewer than 800,000 in 2005. At the current rate, more than one million Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure, making this the worst housing recession since the Second World War.
Housing starts
Sank to a 14-year low of 1.19 million in September. Starts are a vital economic engine, creating jobs and growth as people stuff their homes with sofas and TVs. Starts peaked at 2.3 million in early 2006, and the decline will be a drag on the rest of the economy until the slide stops.
Mortgages
A quarter of the roughly 50 million U.S. home mortgages are subprime. That's seven times the number of high-risk mortgages there were in 2001. That means that many more marginal homeowners have mortgages, making it far more likely they'll wind up in default.
House prices
Fell 3.2 per cent in the second quarter. Prices are falling faster and more broadly than they have in decades, according to the closely watched Case-Shiller index.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071018.IBUSECONOMY18/TPStory/Business
― everything, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:29 (2 years ago) Permalink
where the hell is rasheed anyway?
economic blogs I read (they're all fairly liberal):
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/ http://angrybear.blogspot.com/ http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/ http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/ http://bigpicture.typepad.com/ http://www.janegalt.net/
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:37 (2 years ago) Permalink
In regard to inflation, in the USA during the past three years inflation has been soaring - but almost entirely in the housing sector. The fact that people are encouraged to see their houses as investments rather than as expenses doesn't mean that skyrocketing housing costs weren't inflationary. They were.
As the bubble market bursts, I predict a recession with an extra added bonus of inflation running close to 10% - before the end of 2008. As it has for the past 30 years, the official CPI will understate the real inflation rate. It was rigged under Reagan so that government entitlement programs indexed to the CPI would not increase at the true pace of inflation.
If Bush continues to shovel shit on the dollar right up to the end of his term in January 2009, the inflation rate could hit 15%-20% by 2010.
― Aimless, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
There are some good economics articles put up here as well: http://www.VoxEU.org
― stet, Friday, 19 October 2007 01:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
Which shit on the dollar are you referring to?
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 01:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
As the bubble market bursts, I predict a recession with an extra added bonus of inflation running close to 10% - before the end of 2008.
lol
― aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Friday, 19 October 2007 06:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
this is why i live in canada!
― J0rdan S., Friday, 19 October 2007 06:13 (2 years ago) Permalink
oh wait.
Guys, this is a good time stay in academia right?
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Friday, 19 October 2007 11:51 (2 years ago) Permalink
It's a good time to learn a European language.
― Nubbelverbrennung, Friday, 19 October 2007 13:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
Prime shit examples:
When Bush was elected in 2000, the federal budget was in surplus and the national debt was being paid down. Had this state of affairs continued, as projected, it would have led both to lower interest rates and a strong dollar, together. Instead, Bush submitted a series of enormous tax cuts to the Republican-controlled Congress and lobbied them through. Immediately, the CBO's projected budget surpluses turned to projected deficits for the next decade.
Bush also initiated a war of choice, not necessity, in Iraq. This war has already cost well over $700 billion. Yet, Bush insisted on making his tax cuts permanent. Overall, the national debt has increased under Bush by about $2 trillion in seven years. This represents a difference of about $3 trillion of debt from what was projected at the start of his first term.
Because, due to Bush's tax cuts and other policies, the Federal government was in a far weaker position to stimulate the economy when the recession started after 9/11, almost the entire stimulus was delivered via lower interest rates. Because these rate cuts were artificial, and not based on a stronger dollar, this stimulus not only inflated the current housing bubble, but it also undercut the dollar even more than the ballooning national debt did.
Now the dollar is at an all-time low against the euro and the canadian dollar. However, the incomes of the top 10% of American households have increased at a good clip, while the lower 50% of households have seen a decrease in income after inflation. This is largely thanks to Bush's shitty policies. I expect more of the same mismanagement until he is gone.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 18:36 (2 years ago) Permalink
I agree with everything you've just said. You're predictions still seem a tad extreme on the downside though, if I may so.
― aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Saturday, 20 October 2007 18:50 (2 years ago) Permalink
i wonder if income inequality will ever arrive as a political issue in this country. americans tend to not begrudge the rich - so it'll have to be more of a "for everyone's good" type of angle. no?
― jhøshea, Saturday, 20 October 2007 18:54 (2 years ago) Permalink
I remember the 1970s and early 80s quite well. Back then people couldn't belileve it, either. Bush has done a bangup job of recreating many of the same policy errors under Johnson and Nixon that led to raging stagflation back then, except the underlying economy is now weaker than it was in the 1970s and the oil shocks we are likely to get are not political, as when OPEC was formed, but structural.
Oil will exceed $100/barrel some time this winter. The ever-weakening dollar will lead to smaller profit margins and rising retail prices on all imported goods (which means almost everything we buy in the USA). Transport costs will rise with pil prices. Stock prices will erode along with profits. With so many savings tied up in stocks and home equity, consumer spending will be crunched, and personal debt and bancruptcies will rise like a tide. Businesses will retrench and unemployment will rise. No end in sight.
I hope I am wrong.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:07 (2 years ago) Permalink
Anyone want to join my modern-day James Gang? We shall ride across the lower Midwest, robbing and pillaging.
― milo z, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
sounds fun
― jhøshea, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:13 (2 years ago) Permalink
Sorry, I don't want to relocate. But this scheme sounds ripe for franchising.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
-- Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:07 (14 minutes ago) Link
The coming of $100/barrel oil is not Bush's fault. It's yours and mine and everyone else's for using too damned much energy. I agree Bush could and should have done a lot more with policy to encourage energy efficiency, but there's little he could have done to stop oil's eventual rise to that price level.
― Hurting 2, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
Part of the pricing of oil represents the weakness of the dollar. This hurts the USA more than it does other countries. US citizens are paid in dollars and the US government collects revenue in dollars, so they are stuck. EU countries can use euros to buy increasingly cheap dollars, so they don't see the same rise in prices as we do. The weakness of the dollar is mainly Bush's fault.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:31 (2 years ago) Permalink
The US also uses way more oil than other countries.
― Hurting 2, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
he could have done to stop oil's eventual rise to that price level. Not starting a war in Iraq would definitely have helped here.
― stet, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
― El Tomboto, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:47 (2 years ago) Permalink
arrgh, if that won't work then http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/10/imf-mortgage-reset-chart.html
tombot u r freakin me out
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:50 (2 years ago) Permalink
i hope my small apartment + modest savings plan + job in "information services" is enough to weather the shitstorm, if it comes. i got myself out of credit card debt a few months ago, at least
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:53 (2 years ago) Permalink
well if you can hold down a job and don't have to worry about an ARM reset you should be okay, it's the homeowner with kids and a subprime loan and two cars who ought to be shitting themselves
― El Tomboto, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:58 (2 years ago) Permalink
apart from some student loans and binging on credit cards over a few years, i'm kind of debt phobic.
which has actually made me lose out over the past several years, i realize, since i pay for EVERYTHING with a debit/check card... i could have just paid that balance on a credit card with some rewards scheme and has some air miles or something
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 18:00 (2 years ago) Permalink
rolling gff personal finances into the shitbin thread, ha
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 18:01 (2 years ago) Permalink
This will give you a boner Tombot
http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39952/
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 11:30 (2 years ago) Permalink
the economy increased by 3.9% this quarter! bull market forever, baby. economy's better than ever. golden age.
yet me and so many people I know are getting laid off next month. granted we're all in the writing/design field, but urhhhhh. gggg.
― burt_stanton, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:58 (2 years ago) Permalink
^^^ lol
most of that guy's scenario is not really news to regular bigpicture/CR readers I don't think. But #5, the "we don't pay attention" thing, yeah, well, evidently the awareness campaign is underway, but hell if the big players are paying attention.
He also leaves out the approaching demographic catastrophe as millions of inexperienced thirtysomethings and even some late-twenties kids are forced to move into arguably tougher jobs that the boomers have been holding for two decades. Beyond the social security and healthcare costs associated with mass retirement, I don't really know if this generation has the work ethic and definitely not the rolodex to just start filling in and not fuck up royally. too busy updating their linkedin pages.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
can someone explain what "being upside down on your mortgage" means, in plain English?
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
essentially, owing more than your home is worth.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:10 (2 years ago) Permalink
also Tombot I'm not going to blame this generation as much as I blame their parents.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
isn't that the way people buy homes? by paying for the privilege of a loan?
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
When you enter into a contract with a bank for a mortgage, both you and the bank assume that the property value will not plummet. The bank doesn't want you to default any more than you want to default. But if for whatever reason you need to sell your home, and you can't get what you owe on it, then you will owe the difference to the bank. And the bank knows that when that happens, you probably will not have enough assets to cover the difference.
Predatory-type loans (which seems like a nebulous description to me) typically compound the problem because they have higher transaction rates (points, etc.)
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
oh certainly! well played baby boom letting healthcare slide for the 20 years you've owned the electorate
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
yeah Tracer it's also called "negative equity"
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:19 (2 years ago) Permalink
i mean the truth is the only thing i can find in any of those articles that wont in one way or another stimulate the economy is the payout to the filipino vets and... we kind of owe them
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:53 (3 months ago) Permalink
yeah what's a billion here or there among friends, right? I guess a billion isn't a huge number to anyone anymore. You know how those million or billion dollar line items get parceled out, right? You know how the oversight on those appropriations works, right?
I guess when it comes to Obama-driven spending, all of it is appropriate and can't be criticized, no matter the amount or the result and we'll just deny the political elements of the process. The only criticism can be that we have not spent enough, not that--god forbid--some of the stimulus could be directed towards different sources or--god forbid--delivered more efficiently. The time for discussion is over. The rich are still too rich. Businesses are still making too much off of the back of workers. Profit margins are still too high. We need to give Obama whatever he wants for round two because round one--with it's creation of "more than 600,000 jobs" was a raging success.
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:04 (3 months ago) Permalink
now youre not even making an argument, youre making a straw man
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:09 (3 months ago) Permalink
i mean--is your argument that the stimulus could have been given to more deserving sources or delivered more efficiently? because, like--"duh"
you know what else could have happened, is that people could have not invested heavily in mortgage-backed securities
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:10 (3 months ago) Permalink
I guess when it comes to Obama-driven spending, all of it is appropriate and can't be criticized, no matter the amount or the result and we'll just deny the political elements of the process.
i mean, i still dont have any clue what this means?? what is the "result" youre referring to so obliquely here? why does the fact that government spending is a political process bother you so much??? whats the alternative??
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:14 (3 months ago) Permalink
what is the "result" youre referring to so obliquely here?
The result is that not very many jobs were created from the stimulus program thus far. Given that Obama's goal was to put together a program that "not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term." Where are the jobs?http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jMNoef6xDenBbHWO0Im6rIjDmAgAD9BKKBIG0
maybe the jobs are coming down this slick pipelinehttp://www.usnews.com/money/business-economy/articles/2009/02/19/finding-the-pork-in-the-obama-stimulus-bill.html?PageNr=2&-C=
why does the fact that government spending is a political process bother you so much??? whats the alternative??
Wow. Just wow.
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:45 (3 months ago) Permalink
can u answer that question or no
― heart goin ham (deej), Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:51 (3 months ago) Permalink
the most "political" part of the stimulus process had nothing to do with a few small projects here or there and everything to do with making it smaller than it should have been so that blue-dog dems (and, what, 3 republicans) would vote for it.
and for all the incoherent bitching and whining from the right, i've heard very, very few ideas about what would have made the spending "more stimulative." it's all well and good to say "create jobs," but that's not just a rub-the-magic-lantern thing. infrastructure projects actually take a little time to get rolling. the idea of a payroll tax holiday has some support on the left and right and is maybe a potentially stimulative thing, but for the most part the right has no actual ideas, didn't want any stimulus spending in the first place, and at this point is just in a mode of rolling out that graph every month on unemployment-rate day so they can go NYAH NYAH, and fervently hoping things keep getting worse and stay bad enough that they'll be able to retake the house next november -- so they can get back to doing all that really important, productive stuff they did from 1994-2006.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 7 November 2009 22:15 (3 months ago) Permalink
Where are the jobs?dude this is the worst recession in 70 years. shit wasn't gonna turn around just cuz bush no longer "steered" the ship of state anymore. wake me up in a couple years when your eagerness to criticize obama makes more sense
― kamerad, Saturday, 7 November 2009 22:40 (3 months ago) Permalink
i'll agree that the white house presenting that chart was a mistake in all aspects.
― abanana, Sunday, 8 November 2009 00:23 (3 months ago) Permalink
im not so sure. doesnt it imply the need for further stimulus, because the problem was worse than we thought? if anything being conservative the first time thru lets them get away with more the 2nd time right?
― heart goin ham (deej), Sunday, 8 November 2009 00:27 (3 months ago) Permalink
votes are harder to get now though. which sure demonstrates more integrity than we're used to, but "skeptics" won't budge from their conviction the stimulus was completely political to begin with. anyways whatever krugman was right -- they should have gone big or gone home
― kamerad, Sunday, 8 November 2009 00:51 (3 months ago) Permalink
I don't know of one credible economist who thinks or thought that a stimulus was unnecessary. There was a wide variety of ideas of how not only how much to spend, but how to spend it.
But here's why (as abanana noted) the chart was a mistake. I think this is point I've been trying to make (and have been admitted retarded in my execution, which likely shocks no one.):
One interpretation is that the fiscal stimulus has failed to achieve what Team Obama thought it would. Another interpretation is that the baseline was worse than they believed at the time. I am confident the report authors would adopt the second interpretation. If so, that fact is consistent with what I said in a previous post: In light of the shifting baseline, it is impossible to hold the administration accountable for whether its policies are achieving their intended effects.
Pressers like these pretty much show that there's a lot of SWAGging going on when it comes to measuring the effects of the stimulus. We're not likely to have much concrete evidence for years, as far as causal relationships go. Inadvertently or not, a lack of compelling evidence makes these issues far more political.
It not only makes accountability impossible, it feeds people like me with skepticism for all the new charts that are bandied about with regards to $1.1T in healthcare reform.
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Monday, 9 November 2009 03:25 (3 months ago) Permalink
god, give me a break. i'm so tired of hearing this same stupid bullshit every month when the unemployment rate comes out. "ooo, lookit the chart! lookit the chart!" it's silly to treat their estimates of unemployment as a "baseline" -- that's just a willful and totally political-hack distortion of the situation. if you were somebody arguing for a bigger stimulus, like krugman et al, then you're totally justified in now saying "told ya so." if you were somebody arguing for a smaller or no stimulus -- like the republican party and right-wing media -- then it's total chicanery to now be complaining about the stimulus not "working" because things are even worse than the white house estimates. it's a level of intellectual dishonesty that doesn't even deserve the adjective "intellectual."
and i've spent too much time this past year having this same idiotic discussion with people who couldn't care less about any of this shit except insomuch as it's a chance to go NYAH NYAH OBAMA. so i'm stopping now. you can come back next month and do your same little chart-dance and i won't say a word.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Monday, 9 November 2009 04:16 (3 months ago) Permalink
I don't think anyone in this thread is treating their estimates as a baseline. maybe the michaelscomments blog guy is.
― abanana, Monday, 9 November 2009 06:15 (3 months ago) Permalink
mankiw is in the link dandy don posted, and don is apparently too. both of them presumably know better.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Monday, 9 November 2009 06:25 (3 months ago) Permalink
"Last month, Sunoco became the first oil company to say it will close a U.S. refinery, a ploy aimed at getting that segment to break even this year. All of the units at Eagle Point plant in Westville, N.J., ceased production this week..."
So demand for crude is down so much that we’re actually closing refineries in this country, but the price of crude is up 150% since the beginning of the year. Makes sense, right?
Thanks to my friends in the commodities business for pointing this out. We continue to see pricing in the commodities markets that is disconnected from reality, which makes it all the more distressing that the bill currently being shepherded though Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee (and which still has to be reconciled with an AG committee bill) seemingly doesn’t do a whole lot to correct these problems.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/08/commodities-casino-keeps-rolling/
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 November 2009 17:28 (3 months ago) Permalink
I guess it won't be taken seriously, since it's from the "Democratic Socialist" Senator from Vermont, but there's a beauty in the simplicity of this ''too-big-to-fail'' bill.
― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 11 November 2009 18:31 (2 months ago) Permalink
So while Congress is busy working on reform legislation, Wall Street’s lawyer-lobbyists in Washington are working hard to neutralize such efforts.
Who’s winning? Over lunch across town from Capitol Hill, I recently asked that question of a very smart attorney endowed with deep experience in keeping Washington safe for Wall Street. In answer, he pointed to this seven-line paragraph buried in a 26-page amendment to “HR 3795, Over-The-Counter Derivatives Markets Act of 2009,” passed in a voice vote by the House Agriculture Committee the night before. Following the vote, the committee had issued a press release hailing their vote for “strengthening” regulation.
On the contrary, said my friend, “I guarantee you that not a single member, and almost certainly no one else, apart from the traders on Wall Street and the lobbyist who inserted it on their behalf, understood the significance of this paragraph. It means that nothing will change.”
http://counterpunch.org/andrew11112009.html
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 12 November 2009 13:58 (2 months ago) Permalink
Bob Herbert:
Mr. Obama announced this week that he would convene a jobs summit at the White House next month to explore ways of putting Americans back to work. It remains to be seen whether the summit will yield anything substantial. But it’s fair to wonder why the president and his party have not been focused like fanatics on job creation from the first day he took office.
It was the financial elites who took the economy down, and it was ordinary working people, the longtime natural constituents of the Democratic Party, who were buried in the rubble. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have been unconscionably slow in riding to the rescue of those millions of Americans struggling with the curse of joblessness.
We’ve been hearing that there are six unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S., but even that terrible figure is deceptive. There are 25 unemployed construction workers for every job opening in their field, and more than a dozen for every opening in the durable goods industries, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
This was not a normal recession, and we are not on the cusp of anything like a normal recovery. The unemployment rate for black Americans is 15.7 percent. The underemployment rate for blacks in September (the latest month for which figures are available) was a gut-wrenching 23.8 percent and for Hispanics an even worse 25.1 percent. The poverty rate for black children is almost 35 percent.
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 November 2009 15:37 (2 months ago) Permalink
Elizabeth Warren on credit card interests rates, bailout money, and why plutocracy reigns supreme.
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 November 2009 15:40 (2 months ago) Permalink
great great blog: http://fourteenpercent.typepad.com/
― goole, Thursday, 19 November 2009 14:59 (2 months ago) Permalink
don't know if this blog is great or not, yet: http://firelarrysummersnow.blogspot.com/
― goole, Tuesday, 24 November 2009 18:45 (2 months ago) Permalink
Fabulous Frontline episode last night about the credit card companies.
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 November 2009 14:08 (2 months ago) Permalink
http://www.andrewrosssorkin.com/?p=386
― kamerad, Friday, 4 December 2009 19:42 (2 months ago) Permalink
Realtytrac says defaults and repossessions have been running at over 300,000 a month since February. One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter. Moody's Economy.com expects another 2.4m homes to go this year. Taken together, this looks awfully like Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6962632/America-slides-deeper-into-depression-as-Wall-Street-revels.html
― kamerad, Tuesday, 12 January 2010 14:57 (4 weeks ago) Permalink
not having the DJIA widget and screaming dollar bill on top makes me sad
― Astronaut Mike Dexter (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 12 January 2010 15:38 (4 weeks ago) Permalink
It was tough for me to watch the market inexplicably surge over the last couple months so I dont miss it much.
― mayor jingleberries, Tuesday, 12 January 2010 17:53 (4 weeks ago) Permalink
Re: market surging. Rescuing the economy from collapse entailed installing a huge money-chute with its terminus in Wall Street and the Fed and the Treasury pouring huge amounts of cash into the top end. The result is a certain kind of success, albeit a success that still tastes like a lollipop dropped in hair clippings, but at the final cost of no change to the system.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 12 January 2010 18:56 (4 weeks ago) Permalink
One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter.
Jesus fucking Christ. lot of human misery in that statistic.
cosign
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Tuesday, 12 January 2010 19:07 (4 weeks ago) Permalink
First our economy is like "Hey, here's a home that's four times the size of what you need!" And then it's like "Give that back. Now you don't have a home at all!"
― pithfork (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 13 January 2010 03:17 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1953136,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
Goldman received $12.9 billion when the government bailed out the insurer.
In all, the firm is expected to have earned $12 billion in 2009.
I'm assuming these 'earnings' are including taxpayer money.
― Adam Bruneau, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:52 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
The $2 trillion conjured up by the Federal Reserve to buy toxic assets at face value is not taxpayer money. And Goldman Sachs was one of the biggest beneficiaries when the feds bailed out AIG and decided to honor its contracts on CDOs.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 18:47 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
Didnt every bank basically profit off of federal guarantees and assurances along with 0% interest rates? This is why these fuckers getting huge bonuses pisses everyone off.
― mayor jingleberries, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:06 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
But... but... they were smart enough to be on the receiving end, weren't they?
― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:09 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
― Adam Bruneau, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:52 (2 hours ago)
Actually I don't think so - Goldman Sachs paid back its TARP money in the middle of the year IIRC.
― pithfork (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:21 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
TARP was only the most prominent and direct taxpayer subsidy. GS has profited enormously from the more indirect and less obvious taxpayer subsidies cited in my post above. The AIG takeover resulted in an enormous windfall for GS.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:36 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34842647
Just look at the slaughter across the board: BofA, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Goldman, JPMorgan — all of them down 2.5 to 3.5 percent. This had nothing to do with China. What it’s all about is a ridiculous bank-tax proposal that is anti-growth, anti-capital, anti-profits, anti-shareholders, and anti-bank-lending.
the best thing about this is as of now the live bank quotes are all in the green.
― bnw, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:37 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
Link above proves Larry Kudlow is either as ignorant as mud, or he hides his knowlege very well.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:41 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
jobless rate to stay above 8 percent until 2012
it's alarming and all, but i think it's disingenuous to blame it on "the downturn." the downturn was the popping of an unsustainable bubble. it's possible that the united states is going to have persistent unemployment at a rate that would have been unthinkable not long ago, but that has more to do with structural problems in our society and economy, and the acceleration of global trade, than with "the downturn."
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 15 January 2010 08:30 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
Agreed.
I feel the same way about the term "wealth destruction" - the wealth wasn't really there to begin with.
― pithfork (Hurting 2), Friday, 15 January 2010 09:34 (3 weeks ago) Permalink
Anyone have any thoughts about Obama's bank plan / Glass Steagall 2?
― pithfork (Hurting 2), Friday, 22 January 2010 20:38 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
i'll believe glass steagall 2 when i see itjobless rate to stay above 8 percent until 2012at this point i can imagine out of work rednecks refusing to look for jobs just to keep the unemployment rate high
― kamerad, Friday, 22 January 2010 20:51 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Um, whut?
Also the ridiculousness of that suggestion aside, refusing to look for a job would ultimately put them in a "discouraged worker" category and thus not in the unemployment rate.
― pithfork (Hurting 2), Friday, 22 January 2010 21:09 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
jokes jokes but if you want to take it seriously, the putative rednecks on strike against fascism/marxism might not be honest about how they file their unemployment
― kamerad, Friday, 22 January 2010 21:45 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
i like seeing paul volcker next to obama but no way is this going to do anything to the banks
― max, Friday, 22 January 2010 21:58 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
taibbi is awesome as per usual -
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/27/populism-just-like-racism/
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 1 February 2010 17:04 (1 week ago) Permalink
The Dow closed just above 10,000, dropping 2.6 percent, when two of Wall Street’s biggest fears — a deteriorating jobs market and the debt woes facing foreign governments — re-emerged on Thursday.
― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2010 22:01 (5 days ago) Permalink
What? You thought we were on our way to a recovery? If so, I have a Timothy Geithner I can sell you for cheap.
― Aimless, Saturday, 6 February 2010 01:38 (3 days ago) Permalink