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.

Citigroup's Doomed IT Strategy

Felix, This is the 2nd technical article you've done in a few weeks. Now you're coming into my realm (I am well versed in any operating system/db known to man). We'll have to go 1 on 1 sometime on a technical article.

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.

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.

Glass-Steagall: If Not the Cause, Maybe the Cure?

It makes sense to bifurcate the financial system into two pieces, "anything goes" and "takes retail investor money". I remember reading some big bank (i think it was jpm) was lending hedge funds money and I thought, "wow, the balances of a 100,000 checking accounts is being lent to a hedge fund. Maybe the bank somehow had collateral but it just seemed risky. The two types would be labelled clearly and if wealthy individuals wanted to invest in "anything goes", that's their business. But keep the two risk profiles separate and allow the "anything goes" style to go belly up without impacting ma and pa retail investor/checking account customer.

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?