Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

that anyone ever watched that guy for anything more than lolz is pretty terrifying

-514 Dow

does Obama really need this much help?

Yeah, someone tell Soros he can stop shorting the market to hell now. Obama's got it locked up.

they should change the name to the Down Jones

I love how the misery has become totally routinized now

Dow falls 500 points and it's like what else ya got

Vic, i wouldn't quote a 130 year old analogy.

2008 is an unprecedented worry and there ain't shit you can do to predict much of what will happen. sorry

When I look at the volatility of the stock market lately, the word "teetering" comes unbidden to mind.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

EAT IT, GRAMPS

that quote.

he looks like a melting wax figure or something blech

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/23/bank.letters/index.html

I work in one of these buildings (small US treasury outpost on the 5th floor), tuesday was fun

One of the weirdest aspects of the whole campaign has been seeing the Weathermen become a household name again. Smearing Obama with Ayers was unconscionable, given the more-than-likely chance that domestic terrorism is about to make a huge comeback -- stirring this garbage into the air right before a small storm starts breaking from below is going to confuse an awful lot of people.

KING BLOOMBERG

o man remember when the whole world was on greenspans nuts

!!!

What?!

Dow futures fall 550. Omg!

greenspanznuts

I always knew Greeenspansnuts fans were nuts.

It's a whole new level when NPR sez in the a.m., "well the Dow is gonna have maybe it's worst day ever."

at least your dollar can now buy lots of useless pounds to buy worthless shares on the FTSE

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. It seems that greedy people will act delusionally in their own self-interest. I did not see that one coming, and it was like... whoah.”

My graph way up there ^ is showing the dow down a mere 7 points. What's all the fuss?

ah, there we go

looooool

more-than-likely chance that domestic terrorism is about to make a huge comeback

???

Greenspan naivete = that of an Oklahoma church youth-group member

One problem with predicting the Dow is that the Federal Reserve is empowered to purchase whatever assets it wishes. Under Greenspan it formed something they called the Plunge Protection Team, with a brief to enter the stock market as a buyer when other buyers were staying out of the market. Its activites are not announced.

One way or another, there seems to be resistance whenever the Dow heads for 8000 territory. It is noteworthy that, if sellers were overwhelming the market, no amount of artificial demand could stop the descent. So, I'd say the resistance has at least some validity.

Chase admits that they'll be using their bailout money to buy other banks, not loosen up the loan market: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25nocera.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=all

Has anyone mentioned the Planey Money podcast from NPR? They spun the show off of a recent Mortgage crisis episode of This American Life. New episodes during the week; good mix of news, interviews and whatnots.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/

I'd also recommend Peter Schiff's Wall Street Unspun. Him and the other Euro Pac guys are very bearish, calling for a huge run on the dollar (which obviously has yet to happen) and for China to bounceback quickly even with the US economy tanking (I'm skeptical of how this could work). Weekly shows updated on Wednesday night.

http://www.europac.net/radioshow.asp

Schiff is often good and has been broadly correct over the last six or seven years, but has he overstated the decoupling scenario? and 'emerging markets'? and overestimated the ability of non-US economies?..looking at whats happening to the rand, real, pound, won, euro etc? Still seems the US has major leeway with currency that the others dont have

China is the interesting one, I still think China has a major demographic timebomb on its hands.

Or is Schiff right - and the dollar (temporary bubble) will follow others down after acting as safe haven?

If my understanding of currency trading is correct, it would be impossible for all currencies to devalue against all other currencies. There must be winners and losers. Monetary policy, overall money supply, economic and political strength are generally the major market movers for currency.

Right now the US dollar is moving up more on perceived political(& military) strength than any other factor. There are too many unknowns in the market for traders to quantify the other factors with any confidence that is my guess, at least.

China doesn't have the track record they need to be a safe haven, yet.

Isn't it partly that some of the others (won, pound, rand) are falling due to their own malstructure and exposure

As for a winner, isn't that the yen?

Its pretty interesting right now seeing which way it'll turn next - it seems that no matter how bad a state the US is in plenty other countries are not only in a worse state still but have US problems on top of that also. Eastern Europe is looking really bad and isn't it the EU and the Swiss that have the most exposure to that?

Presumably we're about to see another round of cuts in the EU and UK - both to continue slides against dollar?

TSX down another 8% today.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/10/28/foreclosed.home/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Hey look, not all of humanity sucks ass.

meth's a helluva drug

grim stories

jesus

LOLSWAGEN

"My Other Car's A Porsche!"

Currency moves in recent weeks have more to do with unwinding carry trade positions than currencies finding new levels based on fiscal and monetary policy changes, that is happening but the unwinding is the bigger effect. I don't doubt that the new stable exchange ranges will be different to what they were 6 months ago but I don't think it is an easy business to know what they will be.

I am thinking that £1=$1.65 might be about right for the rate next year rising towards the end. Given I am going to be borrowing in $ to fund education I would like it around 1.35 for whenever I come home to visit and about 2.5 if/when I start working again back here.

Agreed it is significantly carry trades unwinding (feel sorry for those eastern europeans that borrowed yen) - but also think the realization came late Europe was in more trouble than US. As for where they'll be in 6-12 months time its not an easy business at all. In hindsight the recent dollar strength should have been predictable (was easy to get swayed by the inflationary aspects of the bailouts and emergency cuts and not see that the others would follow and have less leeway to do it, and that also the inflationary consequences wouldn't be overnight) - even if longer term prognosis for the dollar not so good.

To me it seems this is where Schiff (but not Roubini) has gone off course (other than predicting decoupling way too early, underestimating credit issues outside the US and being too bullish on a China that is too reliant on construction and has an imminent demographic issue). The printing presses may well lead to a massively inflationary future for the US but it looks more like a deflationary stage prior to that (18-24 months?). But predicting timescales is another matter. Once it turns it could be extremely rapid (I guess this would be when the treasuries bubble ends?)

BOJ to halve rates?

isn't the strength of the dollar just due to investors literally having no idea what is safe to buy with what assets they have remaining?

More like dollar funds investing overseas having to liquidate their foreign assets and having to buy dollars to make their balance sheets look less ropey due to losses in the dollar assets plus the carry trade, i.e. borrowing cheaply in dollars and yen (low interest rates) to invest in high interest rate countries (pounds, eastern europe, euro).

incidentally I can't remember whether it was up thread but kondratieff asked mean about why gold was weak. My opinion is that since gold is priced in jewellery demand and panic, the panic is highest before the reality of the crash so gold was at the top a month or so ago when uncertainty about the economy was at it's highest. Plus jewelery demand is way down because of the economy and people have to liquidate non-liquid assets to cover liabilities.

It wasn't me because Gold is only weak if you bought it in dollars or yen. In any other currency it hasn't lost value

Also actual price of gold is distoried because of growing gap between paper gold and actual gold. paper gold is just a 'promise to pay'

And the leveraged with their ETFs will surely get shaken out the tree the same as the leveraged with anything else