ebworthen

After TARP: Part 1

This is a game.

"Pay back" TARP, give bonuses, when defaults ramp up Jan. 2010 - Oct. 2010 ask FED for more money to backstop bad bets, pay it back to give bonuses, borrow more next year.

There is no end other than at the end of a noose for those who are robbing us, our Grandparents, our Children, and our Grandchildren.

Fannie / Freddie - What Does Treasury Know?

The FED knows that the mortgage market is insolvent, along with the banks that gambled with said mortgages and bankrupted everyone but themselves.

The Decade that Was

This past decade - one for the history books - witness...the collapse of Western Civilization in small and large ways, slowly, inexorably, losing it's soul for the lust of Mammon and all the other sins.

Leaders of all stripes and sectors sell out for a buck, sex, or ego; individuals follow suit, and the foundation built by generations is eroded by the rust of human vanity and selfishness.

Cramer's Mad Money - The Amazing Amazon (12/22/09)

Amazon and other online retailers will do well as long as they can avoid the taxation bogeyman.

Brick and mortar retailers will have to offer discounts to compensate for local taxation.

As municipal and state budget deficits approach collapse, they will go after unpaid taxes through online retailers and individuals purchase records via credit card companies.

This will immediately deflate online retailers to a more realistic level.

'We're on the Path for Fireworks in 2010'

With added interest, most of Europe and much of Asia owes us our debt twice over for unpaid WWII reparations and reconstruction.


On Dec 30 02:26 PM mullet22 wrote:

> As a soon-to-be broke 3rd world country, any shot those rich countries
> they were talking about in copenhagen can start paying us for our
> problems dealing w/ carbon? or even better - how about forgiving
> our debt? come on soros, where are you on this? no one is in more
> debt than we are.

'We're on the Path for Fireworks in 2010'

"Negotiate" a mortgage, not simply get one.

FHA is happy to give out up to $700,000 with 3% down, but this only perpetuates the crisis.

If the majority of the populace cannot negotiate a reasonable mortgage payment on a nominally priced home in accordance with median wage the housing market will collapse twice or thrice over what has occurred so far.

If interest rates go up to 7-9% (historically low) the cost of a mortgage in relation to home price and median wage will be "un-negotiable" for the majority.

Something will have to give; rates (where we are now), price, or supply. We've done the low rate dance; when the rates go up and there is a currency crisis the prices will have to go down 20-40% to reach median affordability.

Of course, if the government extends limitless money to FHA, Fannie/Freddie, and backing up the bailout banks bad loans; the currency crisis will just get larger as the unpayable deficits grow larger.


On Dec 30 11:10 AM wg wrote:

> "Nobody can negotiate a mortgage now..."
>
> Nonsense. If you have 10--20% to put down, a good credit rating,
> a steady job, and the property is not wildly overpriced, anybody
> can get a mortgage.
>
> Just like it used to be for nearly a century, before people with
> negative credit scores, no income, no jobs were allowed to borrow
> $500,000 with nothing down, on a piece of property worth half that
> amount.

Despite its woes (huge deficit; anemic economy; broken political system), Joel Kotkin says the U.S. is a great long-term bet. His reasoning: 1) Viable demographics. 2) Energy resources. 3) Agriculture. 4) Military prowess. 5) Entreprenurial hotbed. "If the U.S. stays true to its unique traditions, it will remain the world's best investment for decades to come."

True, unless it collapses from within.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and it collapsed slowly and rotted from within, not without.

The Best Investment for Corporate America: Lobbying

A noose. In jail they can watch T.V., get fed, and watch the sun rise.

On Dec 29 09:15 AM ScroogeMcduck wrote:

> Congressmen are public servants accepting lobbyists donations should be rewarded with jail time.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

An executive at AIG named Anastasia and a lawyer to boot?

I have a fine coiled hempen parachute she can jump into, though it may catch about the neck a bit.

Dear Anastasia, what do you and your fellow royalists at AIG not understand about your salary and bonuses coming from the people who serve you coffee, launder your soiled sheets, and maintain the civil order that keeps you from being hung from a lamp post?

Gary North Misses the Boat on Economic Theory

Karl - good reading.

So are you a Keynesian, a Von Misesian, split down the middle, or neither? I had a flashing vision of you in drag, red lipstick and rouge, blonde wig, but wasn't sure if you would be clutching a wad of dollars or a gold bar.

I read both your and Mr. North's articles and I'm confused.

Mr. North seems to be parsing mathematical tomatoes, and you seem most upset that he would deign to hint you are Keynesian. You have never impressed me as Keynesian.

Either way, the real issue to me is whether confiscatory taxation to fund immoral banking and governing can lead anywhere good; inflationary or deflationary.

Can't we have deflation of value and inflation of costs; and vice-versa?

My healthcare costs are 500% inflated, but my value as a citizen for working hard and being responsible are 500% deflated. I'm starting to feel foolish for not getting in on the game as it is being played in the basement of the speakeasy (where the forbidden liquor is the folk's retirement and the little children's futures).

You obviously are hitting a tender nerve of Mr. North's; his article was a tempest in a teapot of intellectual foaming at the mouth.

Zounds! I almost went to get out the dueling pistols for you two gents.

Fannie and Freddie: The Gifts that Keep on Giving

Reinstate public hangings of corrupt bankers and politicians.

Fannie and Freddie: Wards of the State, Yet Management Receives Private Sector Pay Packages

Two sides to this: the government is taking over banking in collusion with the banks. On the one side they dole out freebies to the lower classes, on the other side they dole out cash and power to the upper classes. The cream (blood) is coming from the middle class.

As long as they can supply bread and beer to the peasant masses they prevent revolt. However, when the ponzi scheme collapses in on itself, the guillotines will be busy.

South Seas Bubble, the Tulip and Bulb craze - mortgage debt via home equity, Credit Default Swaps, and now wholesale propping up of the scheme by the U.S. Government - this is our dance with destiny.

Don’t Be Suckered by Stock Market Rally in 2010

I agree.

They are desperate to make the TBTF banks solvent, and pump individual money into the black hole of debt so the banks and FED can rake it off the table before the next crash in the markets.


On Dec 28 10:47 AM GreenMom wrote:

> I think I've got it figured out... everyone is taking their emergency
> unemployment checks and playing the stock market with them.
>
> Until I see insider buying starting up again, this rally is not to
> be believed, it is still a desperate attempt by the smart money to
> hand it off to the individual investor, and it has not worked, and
> it's starting to stink.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

CNBC was nauseating this morning with the "recovery" cheerleading.

Mortgage rates go up; home sales go down, foreclosures go up, unemployment goes up, taxes go up, credit card defaults go up...and things are going to be better?

Barf.

Monday Madness: Retail Up 3.6%

I admit it, I left my healthcare bills in the drawer and used the credit card to buy stuff.

Why should I be frugal and pay my debts when the banks and the Congress don't?