jstratt

The Decline of Credit Cards

Excellent viewpoint!

Unfortunately most of the people that I see today are unable to control themselves.

Old thinking: Expensive Cars, boats, motorcycles, RV's or huge homes... prosperous

New Thinking: probably broke

John Paulson Buying Citigroup Shares?

This article was probably written with good intentions. Unfortunately it would appear to be just a classic pumping of a stock based on rumor.

Consumer Credit Falls in Q2

Some thoughts on this excellent information

1) Overall some significant drops are indicated in consumer credit which is a good thing. You cant complain about consumer spending not being high enough and consumers being to deep in debt at the same time.

This is good news if the drop is due to consumers paying down their debt. It is possible however that it is just consumers failing to pay debt and defaulting. That may also be a way of reducing debt.

Credit Card Crunch: Creating a New Generation of Subprime

I dont buy all of Meredith Whitney's arguments on credit cards. She is very talented and called many things right in 2008.

I agree that credit card losses will occur. However the losses up to 15% will be fees and charges rather than loss of capital. Losses will sound bad because they already booked the profits.

The biggest loser is the post office which is losing 2 billion credit card applications being mailed.

The poor people who have been fleeced by credit card companies will be better off without credit cards. Unfortunately I think they will still be able to get them.

Loan sharks like real sharks are going to be amazing survivors.

The Escalator of Life Is Going Down (Part 2)

Kudos to Quinn!

I enjoyed your thoughts and share many of them. Both political parties seem to think it is their elected right to spend heavily. They seem to think that anyone who donates a dollar to their campaign has the right to receive thousand fold returns on that investment.

I enjoyed your passion and willingness to state what you really mean.

Wells Fargo and US Bancorp - Hitch a Ride with These Two

I enthusiastically agree with the author. I took a list of the worlds 50 strongest banks and picked USB, BK and JPM off of it. Then on Monday 3/9 bought all of them and then went out on a limb and bought BAC, RF and GE.

Risk cuts both ways and in a market like this it helps to think long. In short I was willing to buy USB at $8.80 and more up thru $14 because I believe they will restore their dividend within 3 years and a 10%+ dividend in the investment will result plus the price appreciation. That overweighed my reluctance to invest in financial stocks in a financial crisis. It is still not to late to invest even thou those initial investments are up 60% or more in a little over a week. My analysis of GE was much the same.

BAC and RF at $3.80 and $2+ were flyers that I thought had the potential to be 10 baggers within 5 years. They also carry more risk. The government has told us and shown us that they will support the banks, and have created a very profitable banking environment. When this financial crisis started in 2007 I decided to get totally out of financial. Now I think is the time to recreate and build a reasonable financial position in your portfolio.

Credit Card Cancer

Thank you for an excellent perspective Peter.

You were one of the first to point out the contradiction between the government encouraging consumer spending in a consumer debt crisis.

The credit card companies are likely doing what is right. That is pulling back those who are hopelessly overextended already. For those who want to borrow money at huge rates of interest with fee structures that would make a loan shark blush... go for it!