theblindtibetan

Florida and California See Home Sales Increase for More than a Year

The author asks "how could a real recovery be any different?"

I would suggest that perhaps in a real recovery you would not have not lost an average of 20% of the value of your home in the last 12 months?

Consumer Credit Sees Record Plunge: Need Another Indicator?

I take solace in seeing that the lowly consumer now knows what is going on even if the administration refuses to acknowledge that a 'new paint job" will not fix a house that is structurally damaged. The government is bankrupt and lost in a talking head sound loop espousing the correctness of their fiscal policies, while the average citizen, the real canary in the coal mine, has just fallen off his perch.

Clunkers Program and Our Race to Reflate: Keynes Is Rolling in His Grave

What if prudence, learning to live within our means, and a return to frugality were actually the best way to climb out of this hole? If so, increasing consumer debt and destroying perfectly usable vehicles would be like throwing fuel on the fire, would it not? Which values are truly American? Is saddling the next generation with an unburdenable deficit in order to continue our current lifestyle choices really fair? Or is it generational theft on a massive scale? This problem can be solved by a caucus of good citizens; auto mechanics, bank tellers, nurses, bus drivers, supermarket clerks, social workers and teachers. We do not need to look to a covey of self-interested financial millionaires for the answers. At its heart, this is not a financial crisis, it is a moral crisis.

Housing Affordability Falls: Is Real Estate Market in Recovery?

"Bottom Line: It's still the case that there has probably never been a better time to buy a house than right now"

I would would say "probably" except for one very real "possibility".

The possibility that things are going to get much worse in the real estate industry in the near future. With all the data on Alt As and other exotic mortgages that are going to reset within the next 18 months, and the record number of foreclosures that are currently happening, I am at a loss as to how this writer formulates his thesis.

The Fine Line Between Profits and Theft

The Goldman self-dealing story is one we've seen so many times. The incompetent board of directors looks away, while the rapacious CEO loots the company coffers. Except this time the board was composed of our elected officals and their appointed stewards. The fact that Geithner and crew were complicit in all of this is a serious indictment of this administration.

Housing Starts Improve, A Little

More and more I see this pattern. It feels like the market is establishing itself at a new level. A kind of stability at a much reduced volume. Until the other shoe drops of course. Given the resets ahead for mortgages, I worry that we are have landed on a ledge rather than the solid ground of recovery. I believe we moved too fast on the stimulus plan and in our haste we helped the wrong sectors of the community. The most reprehensible perpetrators got rescued while the average citizen has been left adrift. The drama around the stimulus has caused many to think we will one day get back to business as usual. Yet somehow the market is not responding. Jobs and houses. Jobs and houses. These are the bedrock of prosperity and security. And they are both is desperate straits. Goldman's immoral profiteering is no cause for jubilation.

Boomers in Trouble: The Unheralded Economic Mega-Trend, Part 2

You are right on the money. The Boomer is traumatized. She is like someone you pull out of a car wreck. Dazed. Bewildered. Befuddled. Meanwhile the market roars. Up 3% today on Intel’s “great results”. Intel is up 12% is quarter over quarter. Sounds good right? Of course later in the conference call we hear this translates into 15% down year over year. “A vast improvement on 26% down in prior quarter” the market responds. Inside the seam of this sequined prom gown we find Intel shed 2,000 jobs this past quarter. Among these many Boomers who are not coming back to this dance of musical chairs anytime soon. We are living in a fiction wrapped in denial at this moment in our history. The market continues to use metrics that speak to business as usual. Meanwhile Russia reports 10% drop in GDP over the first 6 months. I am sure somewhere, some pundit is now penning why this is good news and portends of a recovery to come.

Commercial Real Estate Datapoint of the Day

A 70% decline in commercial real estate in three years in Manhattan, one of the most expensive markets in the world, should be a siren call to all and sundry that we are in deep trouble. Yet the market seems almost oblivious to such facts.

This is Q3, 2009, a time when many predicted we would be well on our way to recovery. It seems sentiment has replaced logic in the world of economics.

Wishing, and not the wallet, is the new coin of the realm.

Meanwhile record numbers of people are defaulting on their loans. I am sure they wish they could pay them.

A DIRE warning for the United States

One of my main humanitarian concerns during this crisis is the disproportionate number of men losing jobs. In particular, the loss of manufacturing jobs that are never coming back. This is having a catastrophic impact on the spirit and soul of the african american male who depends disproportionately on such jobs to make a decent living.

This is a surefire recipe for social discontent. We are likely to see a surge in drug-related criminal convictions and its baked-in consequence - many more fatherless, impoverished children, in the years to come.

If we do not look at this crumbling infrastructure now and address everyman's need for the dignity and worthiness of a life supporting job, we will surely pay the price in the years to come.

Obama needs to recognize this and understand that he will not steer us clear to calmer seas by paying homage to the greed-driven denizens of Wall Street..

He needs Lincolnesque courage at this exact moment.

As of today, he has not revealed if he truly has the stuff.

Insiders Selling Heavily: What's Up?

This is the real canary in the coal mine. Self interest trumps all human motivations unless you happen to be a saint or mentally deranged. The media, most audibly Bloomberg, has been shilling this current rally despite very thin gruel for sustenance. Investors have enthusiastically jumped on board and now the pilots are bailing. Fasten your belts, we are in for a rocky ride.

Fiscal Policy: What's the Null Hypothesis?

With due respect to the author, my memory serves me differently.

He writes: "We saw the problem with having the wrong null hypothesis when the economy was slipping into the recession. The stimulus package should have been in place long before it was actually implemented in order to be maximally effective, but policymakers were reluctant to act until there could be no doubt that action was called for."

Are we living on the same planet?

I rememeber the DJIA soaring to 14,000 and then a violent and precipitious crash followed by an almost immediate and frantic response to pass an enormous stimulus bill through Congress that everyone admitted was ill-thought out. It was an absolute panic reaction with even the Oracle of Omaha declaring the economy was having a heart attack and the paddles must be plied without a moment's hesitation or further deliberation. So, while elegant and well written, I reject this thesis entirely, as it is rewriting history to fit its convictions. We can always fashion myth to serves any means.

Show Me the Recovery

You comment :The bottom line is that we really do not understand what will happen next. Historical economic theories are inoperative in the face of unprecedented economic intervention

I think this nails it. It reminds of the old adage "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy". We are in uncharted waters here. The level of government intervention, the forfeiture of our children's future with an unheralded increase in debt, the rise of financial shell games as a percentage of GDP, the withering influence of unprovable shibboleths like "systemic risk" on prudent judgement, have all created a PR and pundits pantomime. No need to send in the clowns. They are running the show.

The 13 New Rules of Government Capitalism

My problem is that I would not advise one of my sons to continue to do business with any man who has demonstrated imprudent judgement, pernicious greed, a lack of consideration for the welfare of others and poor character. Yet our Government is doing exactly this. President Obama has bought the "too-big-to-fail" mantra and "systemic risk" shibboleth of the financial mandarins who got us into this mess in the first place. He has abrogated his moral authority to do right by the common man and woman - those of us who have no other voice in the corridors of power but his alone. So it turns out President Obama is no Lincoln afterall. He certainly is a man of above average intellect and I do not question his good intentions, but scratch him, and, at the end of the day, you'll find a Chicago "pol". How sad.

Un-American Government Intervention

This on point. The government is now the wild card in our economic system. Third world economies run by dictatorships are now more predictable than the US, as old school cronyism and "who you know" gets thrown into the cuisinart along with the wooly-headed fuzziness of "the greater good" followed by a random splash of basket cases deemed "too big to fail". Whatever happened to letting the market sort things out? This is going to get ugly.

E*Trade: What the Analysts and News Haven't Told You

Good information. Thank you