Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 200 points at 7,159, a total not seen since the close of October 27, 1997.

currently 7,128.48

7,114.22http://i.mktw.net/mw3/quotes/arrow-dn-lg.gif at close wow

Was down to 7,105.94 at one point.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/images/2008/12/28/down_arrow_red.jpg

lowest close for s&p 500 since December 1996

so are we back to the pre-"irrational exuberance" days then?!?

irrational malaise

stock market spring '09: across the boards markets host '80s revival

Hath not a douche eyes?:

Dating in the time of the pink slip means feeling the squeeze of the drastically reduced paycheck, the sudden sting of the layoff. From investment bankers to real estate developers to construction workers, no job means no buying rounds of $15 martinis for a pretty woman and her girlfriends. No hosting parties in the bachelor loft. And often, no idea how to present one's new self on the dating market.

"It's been incredibly stressful for me," said Neil Welsh, 27, the guy in the suit, who until last year was marketing director for a booming real estate company. "I was so used to using my financial situation to leverage my dating."

Ah, even better:

Alexandria native Niko Papademitriou, 27, became an investment banker with a Cleveland firm soon after he graduated from college. The money was steady enough for him to fly regularly to Manhattan to see his girlfriend and take her to upscale restaurants such as Bond Street and Cafe Gray.

"A large aspect of my life -- three out of the first five conversations that we had -- I told her, 'You're not going to see much of me in the next 15 years if we start dating, because I'm going to be making a lot of money.' " He thinks that worked in his favor, "not so much for the money, but for the drive. It's one of those things in men that women find attractive."

Since being laid off in November, he has moved back to Alexandria to live with his mother. He now takes the Chinatown bus -- for as little as $5 each way -- to visit his girlfriend. Round-trip airfare between Cleveland and New York City averages more than $200.

"It's definitely putting stress on our relationship," he said recently, sitting in an Old Town cafe. "It comes back to this whole manhood thing. Like, can you be the provider, not just for yourself but for others?"

It's been tough on his girlfriend, he said. "She knows that she needs to be this understanding, positive influence in my life. At the same time, there is a lot of fear on her part, knowing that my industry and the one that we had kind of mentally projected ourselves and our way of life on could be over, or at least on pause for a while."

so are we back to the pre-"irrational exuberance" days then?!?

this makes sense to me, cuz my layman's crude and oversimplified take on the current economy is that the dot-com era boomtown artificially inflated the value of the US economy. after the internet bubble burst, all the "money" was moved into an equally overvalued real estate bubble in the US which subsequently burst, dragging the global economy down in the process. we're out of assets to overvalue, there's no place to hide anymore, and the economy can only contract back to more realistic pre-dot-com values.

board economists feel free to expose my hapless naivete.

No I think that's the accepted state of things.

It's funny - peculiar, not ha-ha - that the stock market is down to where it was in 1997 - before the dot-com boom had really taken off - yet houses are still at 2003 levels. Surely 2003 levels are still wildly overpriced.

Ned where are you finding those golden nuggets?

Random Internet trawls. That and wondering what the headline "A Bearish Market for Romance" referred to.

i dont understand whats so bad about those dudes + loling at dudes getting laid off seems pretty shitty

I'm sure the guy that uses his financial situation as leverage for dating can find a suitable market for his new situation, however scaled-down...

Crackwhores!

(been watching Norm MacDonald videos too much)

there's a general deficit of empathy for out-of-work investment bankers, and the implied follow-on to "I was so used to using my financial situation to leverage my dating" is "now I guess I'll have to develop a personality, bummer."

xp

I can kind of "leverage" some sympathy for these guys imagining that some of them were probably hapless dorks most of their life, finally were able to get dates based on their salaries, lost that benefit and were forced to face their underlying feeling of worthlessness.

i can't

me neither.

Happy hour alternative next Friday in NY!

Meltdown: The Economic Collapse and A People's Plan for Recovery

Friday, March 6, New York Society for Ethical Culture, 8:00pm
FREE

Join Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Christopher Hayes, Joseph Stiglitz and Bill Fletcher, Jr. in a wide-ranging discussion of the origins of the financial collapse, President Obama's stimulus package and, most urgently, what reforms are necessary to ensure a more equitable future. The event marks the publication of Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (Nation Books). Katrina vanden Heuvel will introduce the event; audience questions and a book-signing will follow the conversation.

http://www.nationbooks.org/events/188

Stiglitz was on Democracy Now this morning, for anyone interested

the guys quoted by ned sound like douchebags = NO compassion regardless of what their occupation was.

Lamp is concerned for guys who know that women admire them for their drive.

im a really good golfer btw

theez dudes may be pretty lame and i wouldnt date them but i still feel the situation and will continue to play raquetball with them until they can no longer afford the club fees and srsly that greek dude was speaking nothing but real talk if only in a limited way. anyway if the alternative is naomi klein et al then basically f_u

Ladies and gentlemen, Barry Ritholz:

If Obama continues to listen to the god-awful advice of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, he will doom his presidency, and finsh marginally ahead of George W. Bush on the list of worst presidents.

I might point out that the government's goal is not trading, and therefore starting that post with trading strategy tidbits is a bit bogus.

http://content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/atoms/c6/3c/ea/09/c63cea098d87e9368024a1168dc4ea40.jpg

In these our troubled times, an inspiration:

Racing to keep up with a down-market mindset, many real estate brokers say they have been experimenting with a new paradigm in advertising, spinning their ads like roulette wheels in the hope of landing in the sweet spot of the parsimonious post-Lehman buyer.

The model is shaping up like this: The new propriety frowns at luxury, lifestyle and the fetishistic focus on designer brands and architects. Instead, brokers say they are trying to recast their listings in terms of responsible spending, comfort and, most especially, value.

“Three or four years ago, value was something that was uncomfortable even to talk about,” said Bruce Ehrmann, an associate broker at Stribling & Associates. “Value suggested thrift, and thrift meant you couldn’t keep up.”

But now value has another ring and thrift has a nice kind of sound. “People are not buying emotionally or lustily — they’re buying in a calculated manner the likes of which we haven’t seen in 15 years, except briefly after 9/11,” Mr. Ehrmann said. “The draw tends to be location, price and value before glory, glamour, Valcucine kitchens and Waterworks baths.”

An attractive price is the most direct way to convey value, preferably set off by some variation of the formerly taboo “reduced.”

“We never used to say ‘reduced’ in a very strong market because we felt people would think of it as tainted goods,” said Deanna Kory, a senior vice president at Corcoran. “But now if you don’t, people don’t think the seller is serious, especially if it’s been on the market any length of time. And people today feel cheated if they don’t get a deal.”

This is especially true, she added, in “certain categories that are more saturated, like one-bedroom co-ops and downtown lofts from $3 million to $6 million.”

And wouldn't you trust people who looked like this, especially dude on the right:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/03/01/realestate/01cov-600.jpg

with the exception of "price improvement" being used as some sort of Orwellian code for "price reduction," i haven't noticed all that much of this realtor Newspeak -- nor have the pictures in the ads changed that much. i'm still seeing lots of ads replete with pictures of granite countertops, stainless steel kitchen appliances, subzero fridges, and those bowl-shaped bathroom sinks.

the nytimes continues its brave, in-depth, multifacted exploration of the top 1% of american earners

AIG posts $61 billion quarterly loss. Unreal.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AIG-posts-617B-4Q-loss-apf-14508618.html

Under 6K!

ohhhhhhhh sheeeyit

Uh, 7K I think you mean.

it looks like naomi klein dropped out of that thing, btw

dammit JtM, I was sure this was Crash Day

crash day will come if the administration ever really just says 'fuck these banks' and does the nationalization/"structured bankruptcy" thing. but at this point i think that might be a relief. i think the strategy is to try to ease on down to that, but i'm not sure a slow bleed is the best answer. otoh, i guess pulling the trigger on that kind of thing is hard, because it could have a lot of weird consequences. i understand the impulse to avoid cataclysm. i just wonder if there's actually a choice. and anyway, we're already down 7,000 from the peak, what's another couple grand?

meanwhile a republican friend is blaming the selloff today on obama's plan to raise the capital gains rate. yes, i'm sure there's a lot of profit-taking going on...

(talking to conservatives about the economy these days is hilarious. it's like sherilynn fenn after that car crash in wild at heart, where she's dead but just doesn't know it yet.)

Okay, I'm quoting that.

meanwhile a republican friend is blaming the selloff today on obama's plan to raise the capital gains rate. yes, i'm sure there's a lot of profit-taking going on...

and nothing to do with the latest AIG shenanigans being reported on, oh no ...

i'm sure i will hear the "obama is raising capital taxes OMGWTF we gonna die!!" from certain right-wing friends -- there's a conveyor belt of this kinda shit amongst that bunch.

krugman on geithner, again.

meanwhile a republican friend is blaming the selloff today on obama's plan to raise the capital gains rate. yes, i'm sure there's a lot of profit-taking going on...

hahahahahahhahahahaha

one has to have made a capital gain to pay capital gains.

And we have the spectacle of James Baker — James Baker! — attacking the Obama administration from the left, calling for temporary nationalization of zombie banks as part of the recapitalization process.

wow, i missed this one.

Under 6K!

Heh, this was the first thing I saw when I got home after hearing rumors of carnage

one has to have made a capital gain to pay capital gains.

yeah, i asked what segment of the market he thought this profit-taking was happening in. haven't heard back yet.

Don't panic, Gordon Brown is coming to save us all tomorrow.

Ben Stein brings much needed wisdom in these topsy-turvy times.

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/144940

I think of Herbert Hoover, who graduated from mining engineering school in the late 1880s. Just as he was entering the labor force in 1893, a huge Depression hit. But he didn't know about it because there were few statistics, so he headed out West, started a mining enterprise, and became a millionaire

I read that a miming enterprise.