Thomas J. Gordon

Pending Home Sales Increase, But Are They Keeping Up with Supply?

This is non-statistical but I want to offer another explanation. I think short sales are upping the "homes under contract" number. We made an offer on a place in march and it's still tied up by banks/servicers/fnm trying to make up their minds. I would think all these short sales would just sit there and be recorded as a home under contract until they sell. Normally the house would sell in a month or two but because of these short sales, they're just sitting there forever.

Juicing Your Income with Select Bonds

I'm impressed. I tried to reference mutual funds in one of my articles and the seeking alpha editors told me they don't publish references to mutual funds. I had to find equivalent etf's to all the mutual funds I was talking about.

Nothing Suggests We're Anywhere Near the Bottom

By the way, for those of you who object to Mr. Denninger's politics. I think he stated in one of his Market Ticker columns that he voted for Mr. Obama. I personally question the tradeoff's he made in that decision, but for those of you trying to paint him as an economic Limbaugh, there may be more to him than that.

Nothing Suggests We're Anywhere Near the Bottom

notblind and mentat (I love Dune). I have been following Karl a lot longer than he has been on Seeking Alpha. I referred to him twice in my aritcles. I agree he is extreme. At times he does seem to be cheer leading for catastrophe. But in all that he has some incredibly good insights. He was calling the housing bubble and the fnm/fre collapse in early 2007. As an investor those insights are incredibly valuable. Like in this article the idea of following sales tax receipts, that's a good idea. It's an idea you don't see a lot of other places. He also seems to have a real trading and accounting background. So read for the ideas and when he gets to the guns and ammo stuff just screen it out.

No Friends for Government Bonds

There was a 3 full (32/32) point move in the 30yr yesterday and I can only see seeking alpha talking about it. It seemed like a big deal and no one is saying what happened. some people are saying there was a big auction and it didn't have a lot of bidders, but that seems like understatement.

The Horrible Self-Dealing of Ken Lewis and the Principal-Agent Conflict

Does anyone have any thought why Cuomo, who I don't consider the most free market guy in town, is suddenly acting like there's some big scandal going on because Bernanke and Paulson leaned on Lewis? I thought Cuomo was of the big business bad, government good kind of guy. And he will sue big business until he makes governor like his predecessors (Guliani, Spitzer) did.

The Insidious Secondary Effects of TARP Funding

Jasper, good thoughts on allowing for, and not over reacting, to failure. One thought I have been coming to lately is that things aren't really that bad. I think it's clear too many borrowed too much in the U.S. (Merkel, Denninger, Schif) and that some financial organizations (not all) used excessive leverage on subprime etc. I'm not seeing a new business failure every day now. Maybe TARP money saved the day or maybe it wasn't that bad in the first place.

BofA's Lewis Confirms: Government Coerced the Merrill Deal

This is the mess you get into when the gov't starts to get involved in the private sector. It starts out innocently with just some TARP money and pretty soon the Sec of Treasury is threatening the CEO of a very large bank. In Nevada Reid played the TARP card on banks lending to a project in Las Vegas. TARP money threats are being injected into the GM and Chriysler situations. Part of the reason we have a free society is that we have diversified centers of power in our society. The private business sector allows people who don't agree with the government to work for a living. We are standing on a precipice of the gov't being involved in all decisions and I fear the people in charge don't even realize that.

Bail Out for Dummies - Part I

One point I have not seen mentioned is that the gov't should only buy assets of companies that have declared bankruptcy. The successful s&l workout of the 80's disposed of the assets of institutions that had failed. I don't know what it means when the gov't is tryiing to buy toxic assets from companies that are still operating. That seems like a formula for mischief. I guess it could be argued that these large banks would fail without gov't help, but I say: let the institution fail, let fdic make sure the depositors are whole up to the limits, and then dispose of the toxic assets at the best prices you can get.

U.S. Government Changes Message, Boosts Confidence - For Now

Dave,
Good point. It's one or the other. I have the feeling this financial panic thing is overdone. A few investment banks, some players in the mortgage arena, and 80 people at AIG did some stupid things. Does that mean we should scrap our economic system? I even think the falling home prices thing is overdone. How many people bought in the last 5 years? I think the economy is healthier with lower home prices. Main street is driving us back to normality as far as I can see. We just need to get a handle on the unemployment situation, and maybe the best way to do that is to just temporarily increase and lengthen unemployment benefits.

Fixing the Economic Crisis in Six Easy Steps

A regulator was told directly and correctly that Madoff was a crook and couldn't push it through to a correct concusion. Federal regualators get paid whether they sit in their office or they do something effective. Why is your new regulatory regime more effectiive than the one we've had for the last 20 years?

Turning Japanese: The Audacity of Reality (Part 3 of 3)

this is a good article. I think the consumers in the u.k. have more debt % wise than the u.s. we need an article called "did the gov't break our leg and then offer us a crutch" but I don't have time to write it. this article is close.

... Flash

Number of U.S. Homes With Negative Equity Is Stunning

I have two issues with this article:

1) one third of the people in the u.s. own their houses free and clear. I'm not sure what the geographic distribution of these free and clear owners are but I have read this in many places.

2) most prices are still above where there were in 2003-2004. Could 30% of the homes turned over or been refinanced to close to assessed value in the time since 2003/2004?

Can the Banking System Handle Huge New Write-Downs?

Bill, Thanks for the article, it's good.

turkeyeyes: the term predatory lending is an oxymoron I think. These people are receiving 100's of thousands of dollars to purchase scarce and valuable assets. Some lenders were stupid and lent even though the borrowers couldn't make the payments, but they were always covered by rising prices. I suppose terms of repayment could be onerous, but when someone is receiving 100's of thousands of dollars I have a hard time thinking of that as predatory.

I think Paulson and Bernanke think this: If we are having this much trouble because housing prices went from 100% to 80%, it's the end of the world if housing prices go from 80% to 60%. so they're doing anything they can to keep housing prices up. I think that part of the solution is for prices to find their own level, which right now is generally lower.

for those of us who lived in "super" cities, we become aware of a great irony. a yuppie couple in 2006 in a super city buys a 1.5 million dollar place in a "better" neighborhood. They are now negative equity have trouble with the payments and now ma and pa kettle from middle americ are expected to bail them out? How does anyone find that "fair". but the winds of time are blowing against those that believe in personal responsibilty. "There will be a time when all will turn against us... " ... Dune