jdl51

And Bernanke Didn't Think Unemployment Would Reach 10%

What we're seeing is the result of eight years of republicanism. Seems like most posters here think that before January 22, things were just peachy. We came within a hair of a total financial meltdown. If we had let the banking system fail, there would have been total anarchy in the streets. Businesses everywhere would have shut their doors laying off tens of millions, that would have escalated until our economy would have suffered a crash that would make the great depression look like a tea party. That is the scope of the disaster that was unfolding last fall before any action was taken. Yet there are many here who seem to think that would have been the better path, to do nothing and let the whole system collapse. I do not like the fact that we have spent hundreds of billions to prop up the banking system but the alternative was far, far worse. Anyone who doesn't think so really doesn't have a grasp of what happened a year ago and its consequences or are so blinded by ideological hate that they don't care what happens to our country.

Earnings Season: The Car Is Shiny, But Look Under the Hood

Well, I've always been told that the markets are forward looking. We've gone up over 50% in six months. The markets anticipated improved earnings, they're here and now we're waiting for what's next. If the economy continues to improve, job cuts are trending down and are expected to show growth shortly after the first of the year, then we'll start the next leg up.

Property Values Set to Fall 43% from Current Depressed Levels

Fortunately I bought property in the '80s and '90s and have done fairly well, even if we get to the Armegeddon levels the author is predicting. Just looking at my area, S.Florida, another 40% plus drop seems highly unlikely. That would put waterfront homes in the 150s which haven't seen that level since the early '90s, late '80s. At those prices and at present interest rates, which are at historic lows, people would be snapping up property down here so fast it would make your head spin. Imagine you're a European and you could get a really nice condo on Miami Beach for less than 60,000 euros. There is a support level under this market and it is not 40% down from here unless the entire world economy goes completely down the tubes. At present the opposite is happening, with China growing near 9%, the U.S. showing positive growth, EU economy starting to expand, interest rates close to zero in some countries and global stimulus still with the pedal to the metal. If there is any improvement in employment, which at current productivity rates seems just around the corner, the stabilization will be firmly in place.

Oil: Supply and Demand? Hardly!

If you limited trading oil contracts to people who actually have a connection to the product and get speculators out of the arena, the price would probably drop by half, regardless of what the dollar is doing. The oil market is a manipulated market and has been for a long time, whether you're talking about the producers or the futures market. The WTO should have come down on OPEC a long time ago, but are too afraid to do so. And why the U.S. doesn't have a comprehensive energy policy that takes advantage of our huge NG reserves, promotes alternative energy and lessens our dependence and monetary support of ME regimes that are the source of terrorism shows the power of the oil lobby in this country. It should be about what benefits everyone and not just a bunch of Texas oilmen.

A Cautious Look at Where Markets Are Headed

It's hard to believe that with interest rates at 0, the 30 year mortgage at 5%, oil fairly stable, and earnings reports more up than down, that a protracted retreat in stock prices will happen. Correction, yes, but never before have we had interest rates this low with no hike on the horizon. Add to that the stimulus efforts worldwide I have to believe that next year will be a more gradual rise in stock prices than we've had the past few months with a few pullbacks along the way. Consumers should gradually work their way back into the picture, too. Automobile sales have been depressed lately and with a 12 million per year scrappage rate, it's only a matter of time before people will have to buy cars. We shall see.

Where's the Outrage at the Banks?

"Whoa there for a moment, lets be fair and think back in the early 1990's when our government who regulates our banks told them and other financial institutions to ease credit for those who normally cannot qualify for a home loan."

Let' be fair and tell the truth here. The CRA was implemented to stop banks from redlining neighborhoods that they were taking deposits from but refused to lend to. The banks were never "forced" to lend to anyone but were required to lend to qualified borrowers in neighborhoods that they serviced. The banking fiasco had its roots in irresponsible lending to just about everyone, not poor unemployed ghetto folks. If that were the case, we would not be having foreclosures in every neighborhood in the country, but would be limited to a few homes in the poorest neighborhoods that the right constantly tries to blame for the collapse of the whole financial system. You'd have to be an idiot or completely ignorant of how the system works to believe that. Banks went on a lending binge to anyone that walked in the door regardless of qualifications because they were more interested in making fees, securitizing the loans, passing them on to investment bankers who with the collusion of the rating agencies, sold them to an unsuspecting world and then the cycle repeated itself until it collapsed. And to multiply the problem, investment banks sold insurance policies, but they couldn't call them insurance policies because those are regulated so they called them credit default swaps. They sold them to anyone who wanted one, again to collect the fees on something they never thought they would have to pay off. Unfortunately the whole house of cards collapsed. The previous administration didn't believe in regulation and looked the other way while all this was going on instead of jumping in and putting a halt to it or at least try to regulate the derivatives industry which would have lessened the losses considerably. If you want to blame someone, blame the mortgage brokers that sold these subprime loans to people they knew wouldn't be able to pay, the appraisers that juiced their numbers, the regulators who were asleep at the switch and the ratings agencies that didn't bother to do their due diligence and check the underlying mortgages. Any link in that mortgage chain would have put a stop to the whole mess, yet all of them were too greedy to do their job responsibly.

Looking Back at Fiscal 2009

"Wow! talk about not being able to remember history!! It was a year ago when the Dem majority split the 2009 budget in half with "the Bush budget" covering the 6 months to end of March when the second half Democrat/Obama budget could run the deficit up faster than Bush ever had. If you are going to write here, at least TRY to get your facts straight. BTW, I think that Bush and the GOP congress were complete fiscal failures as are Obama and the Dems. WE ARE TOAST!"

Bush's 2009-2010 budget that he proposed, before Congress even looked at it, had a $1.2 trillion deficit, not including Iraq and Afghanistan, which he never included in his budgets since the wars started. So before Democrats touched it, he projected a $1.2 trillion/$1.4 trillion for this coming fiscal year which started a couple of weeks ago. Bush ran up close to $7 trillion in debt. Started at around $5 trillion and ended up close to $12 trillion, much of that when republicans had complete control of Congress. Of course, republicans have been saying for the past 30 years that deficits don't matter, except when a democrat is in charge. No one gave the dems credit when they fixed the budget mess left behind by Reagan and Bush I. They'll have to fix it again because the republicans are incapable of ever balancing a budget.

Looking Back at Fiscal 2009

This is the final Bush budget. All of the deficit, aside from the $200 billion stimulus spending, are what's left of the Bush administration "fiscal responsibility". In other words, Obama is not responsible for this deficit and it's increased government spending. And Bush's proposed budget for 2009/2010 had a projected deficit of $1.4 trillion. So before Obama even set foot in the WH, these deficits were already baked in the cake. Not bad considering Bush started with a budget in surplus and projected surpluses as far as the eye could see. He averaged around $750 billion a year in deficits with nothing to show for it except two wars and a financial meltdown that almost destroyed our economy. Now let's see if the public will remember how well the republicans did last time they were in power and vote for them again next year.

Bank Earnings: Reality Check Ahead

So no concrete information, just passing on a rumor is the best you can do? How about some facts instead of printing a comment from another article. Some experts? Are these the same experts who haven't reliably predicted any of the catastrophes the financial system went through the past couple of years?

Marc Faber: Equities Safer than Dollars

"Estimated Currency and Financial Derivatives $642.184 Trillion"

I think you misplaced the decimal here. A year ago during the meltdown, financial derivatives were around $60 trillion and some of that has been wound down. Next month, the
last Bush budget will expire. So aside from the stimulus spending this year, somewhere around $100 billion, all of the deficits accumulated since 1980, around $11 trillion, are from the last three republican presidents. The borrow and spend policies of the last three decades has nearly destroyed our economy, and may yet destroy our economy. So much for deficits don't matter.

On Sep 29 07:08 PM twitee wrote:

> For those less inclined to Scripture, we can readily turn to mathematics
> and to our instructive friend, the parabola, for clues about what
> lies ahead. Simply stated, parabolic growth rates herald major changes
> just ahead in virtually any arena of life, and the parabolic increases
> in the Federal Reserve’s creation of dollars will prove to be no
> exception.
>
> The accumulated official US Public Debt of $11.3 Trillion at May
> 2009 has grown by over $2.1 Trillion in the past twelve months alone,
> with multi-trillions more ahead and no end in sight. The immediate
> future suggests massive additional bailouts for commercial real estate,
> credit card debt portfolios and insurance companies - plus the bubbling
> up of a Witches’ Brew from hundreds of trillions of toxic OTC derivatives
> now in jeopardy - as the next major dominoes likely to fall. The
> usdebtclock.org website provides the following:
>
> US Public Debt $11.317 Trillion
> US Government Bailouts $11.650 Trillion
> Estimated Currency and Financial Derivatives $642.184 Trillion <br/>
>
>
> Note: In March 2006 the Federal Reserve discontinued its separate
> publishing of the critical M3 money supply data, and so we are left
> to the estimate the parabolic increases in the printing of money
> within the larger ‘Estimated Currency and Financial Derivatives’
> data.
>
> At some point in the near future, the market may finally acknowledge
> that the boasted about US Dollar, the Emperor, is no longer wearing
> any clothes. And for both Wall Street and the average American alike,
> the Buck may stop here...be prepared for the inevitable rise of Gold,
> Equities and any Hard asset in a long run....in a short term we are
> in the war with deflation....

Should You Invest in Banking Stocks?

Betting on financials, or the market in general, to go down this time of the year is more often right than not. We are still feeling the effects of the meltdown in real estate but things are less bad than they were a year ago. I sincerely doubt that BAC and C have hit their highs and anyone holding these two, especially BAC, should make out very well in the long term. 0% from the Fed, 5% mortgage rates and 14% +/- on CC added to BAC's Merrill acquisition, it would be almost impossible not to make a ton of money.

Some Scary Implications of U.S. Debt

Thirty years ago when RR was elected, our national debt was a little over $1 trillion. After 30 years and three "deficits don't matter" republican administrations later, it's closer to $12 trillion. Eight years ago people were wondering what would happen if we didn't have a treasury market anymore because we were starting to retire some of that debt. Thanks to "fiscally responsible" republicans we don't have to worry about THAT anymore.

Defending the 'Most Dangerous ETFs': A Response to Don Dion

If you had put your money in FAS last spring and held it, you'd have something like an 800% return by now, even with the decay. Not bad.

Some Scary Implications of U.S. Debt

In 2001 as GWB took office, the question economists had on their minds was what would we do if the debt was totally paid off. We were running $200 billion a year surpluses and surpluses were projected out as far as the eye could see. They took the 30 year bond off the market and we were down to around $5 trillion in debt. After eight years, GWB and the republican congress managed to take care of that problem. They added another $6 plus trillion and as of today, we're still operating under Bush's last budget. So much for being "fiscally conservative".

Why the U.S. Dollar Drop Might Be Significant

The dollar hit new lows against the Euro? Wasn't it trading around 1.65 to the Euro last year? It's now at 1.44. And when the Euro was first issued in the late '90s it was at 1.18, which isn't much of a decrease seeing as how we've added almost $6 trillion in debt the past eight years. It may go lower, which will make our goods and services much cheaper, imports more expensive and bring our trade deficit into balance which would then improve the position of the dollar. And the cycle goes on.