bobomite

Case-Shiller's Recent Strength: It's Not Just Seasonality

Here is one rough way to look at it:

Median house price: ~$200k

$8K credit to 1st time buyers = 4%

I don't see how this is "hashing the bears' argument." This is just more artificial propping of house prices.

Offer $16k credits and watch even more housing growth happen!

;)

Twitter is set today to secure about $100M in new funding from investors that value the messaging service at $1B, compared to a valuation earlier this year of around $255M, according to The Wall Street Journal. Twitter has yet to generate revenue or finalize sales plans, though executives have discussed ads and premium services.

Only $1B for a company that re-distributes text messages and has no revenue. What a steal! I'll take two.

Sources say three bidders for AIG's (AIG +13.3%) Taiwan unit have offered less than $1.5B, well below the $2B AIG hoped for, throwing the sale into doubt. Still, at the rate AIG's shares are rising, it may soon not need to sell anything.

Why would AIG sell anything? With the gov't backing they have, they are free from any worries about losses. Just like Freddie, Fanny, C, GS and all the ol' gang.

Time for some fat bonus payments!

Leverage on Wall Street is rising at the fastest pace since 2007. "I am surprised by how quickly the market has become receptive to leverage again."

Governments everywhere have declared they well do anything to keep banks from failing, so why wouldn't they all just lever back up?

Cramer's Stop Trading! Citigroup Is Red Hot (8/11/09)

I think the previous and current administration have both shown that they will do anything and everything to keep the big banks afloat. Hmmm, reminds me of the "implied gov't backing" of a couple other GSEs.

So, my prediction is that their stocks will run up, the banks will take more risky moves, and when the price starts falling you know that the insiders got the word that there would be a partial takeover.

Then after the price collapses, they will buy the stock at $.15 a share and enjoy the miracle bounce when the bad assets are stripped and the company released from bankruptcy in an amazingly short time.

Well, at least we all learned something from the big credit bust. I think we learned "rinse, repeat."

Despite What Cramer Said, Housing Has Not Bottomed

I think Cramer uses his own index, the Cramer-Shriller.

The New Supersized Fed

Thomas Jefferson said, "If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Just another way to look at the expanding Fed balance sheet. The author got one thing right - this isn't going to change anytime soon.

Viewer's Guide to President Obama's Wednesday Regulatory Reform Announcement

11. Do you support HR 1207?

Helicopter Ben Turns into Ballistic Missile

The "Federal" Reserve is owned by the major banks. Those banks are all in deep doo-doo. So the "Federal" Reserve making up funny money in these staggering amounts to buy US debt and overpriced houses.

This is is going to encourage further US gov't debt and also inflate house prices, preventing them from reaching proper historical levels vs. household income levels.

This is nothing more than the same shell game of the last few decades, played at the top of the paper-trail food chain.

The President vs. Blogs - And the Future of Derivatives

The President is clearly a supporter of the current US economic model - private central banking. The Federal Reserve has resisted all efforts at transparency, including Freedom of Information requests.

In this environment it is indeed impossible to know what is really going on.

Private central banking is supposed to eliminate the corruption and distortion that politicians would bring if allowed to directly control monetary policy.

I submit a counter-argument: The non-transparent disaster that our banking system has created has already consumed more money than every pork project that Congress has ever passed in history, and the full bill is not even tallied yet.

The Free Market Votes: Still No Change We Can Believe In

I agree with the "economically illiterate" part but that's about it.

The purpose of money is to facilitate trade and production. Having a private central bank owned by the banks does not support that. Corporations have nothing but self interest.

However due to that illiteracy, even baby steps towards another system are highly unlikely. We're probably stuck with the self-enriching, fractional reserve lending, interest consuming system that we have.

Why Felix Should Walk Away

CNBC is a joke.

The New TALF: How's This for Irony?

One man's ironic is another man's slow motion train wreck.

Rethinking Subsidized Finance

The government should lend for houses, schools and capital purchases. The interest collected should offset income taxes.

Commercial banks would still exist - they can do business with anyone seeking more than these basic and fundamental services, such as credit cards or LBO action. The commercial banks would do this by borrowing money from the Treasury. (Not the Fed.)

The Inversion of Corporate and Sovereign Risk

Wow Tyler Durden was such a bad-ass in the movie, he sounds like a nerd here.