normthefedup

Where's the Bottom? Still Anybody's Guess

Smart man, Lloyd, smart man. The best article I've ever read at this site. Excellent, excellent, work.

This Is Not "the Big One"

Years ago in my youth, I had an elderly neighbor who was a steadfast democrat. Being a young Republican, I couldn't understand his philosophy about politics, the country, the economy, etc. When I sat and spoke with him one day to get a little benefit of his years, he summed up his entire dissertation with one phrase: "I remember Hoover."

When queried about why I became a steadfast Democrat, I hope I have the same conversation with a young Republican neighbor, just so I can make the statement: "I remember Bush."

God bless you Louie, and please forgive me my past sins and doubting you.

Author, I sincerely hope you're holding Morgan Stanley stock. A friggin pile of it. Errors like yours just add gasoline (even at $4 a gallon) to this flaming market. I can forgive mistakes.....not this one.

Financials To Resume Meltdown Momentarily

Nice work Jason. I'm constantly the voice of dissention and usually disagree with these articles as sensationalism. Not this time. Whether or not I agree with your conclusions is immaterial. You gave us just the facts, son, and not too much in the way of conjecture. I applaud your honesty, lack of emotion, and reporting acumen. Kudos to you. I hope I see and will seek many more articles from you.

Corporate Fraud + Government Intervention = Bailout Nation

...oh,...almost forgot....author, I've never seen agreement with an article to this degree. And by highly intelligent, articulate and LITERATE participants. Also unusual. Again, nice work and I applaud those of you who commented. Nice work, too.

Corporate Fraud + Government Intervention = Bailout Nation

Jim: outstanding, outstanding, outstanding. There's nothing I like more than a little venom with my breakfast. I, unfortunately, agree with EVERY point you've made and as a senior living off of mainly financial preferreds (down about 20% at this point by the way which is a NOTABLE improvement over where I've been in the last month or so), I believe you've hit the nail on the head. However, and not to disagree but to add a little more wood to the bonfire, I also go along with Catoelder, above. He's making the same point I've made for about a year now. Here's the scenario: the moron couple who are living paycheck to paycheck with a zero net worth and (need) TWO incomes to support their "lifestyle" of Mercedes and BMW, drift into their local bank to buy an incredibly inflated $800,000 house on an interest only ARM with no money down. Their intent and thought: "...don't worry about tomorrow or building equity, I'm living the good life today." $5,000 a month mortgage, $1,000 a month in taxes = $72,000 off the top of that two income family. One loses his or her six figure job, and they're in BIG trouble. Now throw in the "unforeseen distant possibility" that the house price would actually DECLINE (God forbid) or that the ARM monthly payment would actually go up (by DEFINITION), multiply this by about 10 million additional morons, throw in a generation of greedy unregulated banks, and you've got a disaster waiting to happen. Welcome to the day care generation, folks. Their parents went to work to save for the extravagant retirement that their untaught, irresponsible children have just taken away from them. I'm digressing. Again, author, nice piece. Catoelder, smart man. Good luck, we're going to need it.

Credit Crisis Review: ARMed for Failure

Steve, I'm usually screaming at the idiot who wrote the article. Not this time. You're a sensible, intelligent young man who's just giving us the facts. This is a really good piece. Nice work. If I were your father, I'd be proud of you.

Commenter above, I short you, I can't disagree but have to, frankly, place most of the blame on the consumer. Think about it, these morons bought houses that they couldn't afford based on two incomes usually (suppose one lost his job...nah...that would take foresight), took out a mortgage that they KNEW they couldn't afford two years down the pike (suppose we CAN'T sell the house....nah...that would take foresight), in some cases took out interest-only loans (did they think at all about equity in the property....nah...that would take foresight) and never thought that the housing bubble would, inevitably, burst (nah..that would take foresight). Common sense, in this country, is on sick leave. Thank the day-care generation that's now growing up, reproducing, and perpetuating the breed. See this mess?... guaranteed, it's gonna happen again in about 21 years. Will anyone remember? Nah...that would take foresight.

Pot Admits Kettle Obviousness: BAC on Merrill's CDO "Sale"

As with most people in the market, I've been spending much time on the phone with my broker/financial advisor recently. I guess even after 28 years of active trading, I needed the security blanket. But I made the normal complaint/comment that if, in most cases, the "analysts" would just shut the hell up and keep their OPINIONS, not KNOWLEDGE, but opinions to themselves, the market would be a LOT less driven by fear and uncertainty and a LOT more driven by
experience and confidence. That'll unfortunately never be the case again. Keep in mind, by the way, fellow traders, that according to the last data I can find, about 31% of all trades are made by morons sitting at their computer terminals. These are the people fretting when their "investment portfolio" of 100 shares of AMZN drops by about $110 and run for the hills taking everyone else with them. Like I said, morons. But that aside, I wasn't surprised to hear that my broker's firm, a BIG firm, has a fund that bets against the analysts. As it turns out, over the long term, these geniuses only turn out to be right 44% of the time. If you have time and money, it's a sucker bet. You're going to win by betting against the analysts. As it turns out, this particular fund has the highest overall return of any fund that my brokerage firm...again...a BIG firm, offers. Best thing these "experts" can do is, again, shut the hell up, let us do our homework based on facts, not conjecture, and stop spreading rumor based upon what you THINK but actually DON'T know. I just love when some 25 year-old snotnose analyst makes a determination that an IBM-like corporation missed his "street estimate" and is likely to "experience a downturn in the next quarter." Listen, snotnose, your butt is still pink, and that IBM-like corporation whose stock you drive down 5% today will be here LONG after you're gone. LEARN something through the school of hard knocks, lose a few bucks in the market, THEN give me your opinion. A pox on you and those like you. Those of you who made the determination YESTERDAY, the Merrills move was good, and now changed your mind, need to lose your jobs. Now the question becomes: were you right YESTERDAY or TODAY? We'll never know.

25 Ways to Tell a Banking System Is Unsound

Thanks Matty, I thought so, too! I guess it all boils down to the effect that comments like these have on the "great unwashed masses" who are currently involved with pennies in the market. Someone above commented about being down $1100. Try $100,000 a day.....all because of commentary that designed to frighten and impress...journalism's version of "shock and awe." I'm tired of it but I'm one very small voice in a very large and noisy wilderness. Thanks for the kudos and have a great day.

25 Ways to Tell a Banking System Is Unsound

Mike, I, unfortunately, agree with much of what you've said.

There's a but.....you, like all the other doomsayers continue to throw numbers around that are, indeed, impressive, but only tend to cloud the issues and reinforce your own arguments.

Case one: "There is roughly $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. $2.60 Trillion of that is uninsured. There is only $53 billion in FDIC insurance to cover $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. Indymac will eat up roughly $8 billion of that."

Are you implying that ALL of the $2.6 trillion in uninsured deposits are at risk? Well you are and of course they're not. So don't even use that number. If 1% of those deposits are at risk, that's $26 billion. There's enough money to cover twice that much in FDIC according to your numbers.

That's only one example. I could go on.

I'm, frankly, not going to take the time to argue every point you make. It's fruitless and I DO agree with SOME of them. But I'm really tired of you and your ilk using huge numbers to predict an apocalyptic scenario that is very unlikely to take place. Yes, Fannie and Freddy have $5 trillion in mortgages or whatever on their books. So what???? Again, the vast, vast, vast majority of that indebtedness is with people like you, me, and your readers. We pay our bills. For those that don't, won't, or can't, well, then the rest of us have to carry the burden. THAT will NEVER change.

But the bottom line is: stop sensationalizing a situation that doesn't need to be sensationalized. Give us real numbers that count, use facts that aren't distorted, and stop screaming doom and gloom. We're resilient.

Let me equate what your kind is doing with a hopefully mythical example in your own life: "Y'know Mike, your wife leaves the house every day for at least eight hours.....that's an average of 250 times a year....that's a lot of guys for her to be sleeping with.....are there really that many motels in your neighborhood...?" Reality check: she's very, very, very likely to be at work.

Grow up and cut the crap.