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Socialized Medicine Is Coming

What always gets omitted from the healthcare reform discussions is the issue of personal responsibility. A large and growing chunk of the chronic diseases problem plaguing our country is due to what too many of us choose to put into our bodies: too much unhealthy food, too much alcohol, cigarette smoke. Everyone knows these things are a bad idea, yet gluttinously ingest them anyway. The notion of some pay-for-performance outcomes metric for doctors is laughable- doctors can really do very little for someone unwilling to help themselves, and of that, most is very expensive. This failure of personal responsibility cuts deep to the core of our empire in decline. The government can not make us healthy!

Roubini the Revisionist

I'll take Roubini going bullish as a bearish indicator.

Rising Number of Renters Could Spell Trouble for Consumer Price Index

Don't forget- rents fell throughout the Great Depression, from the outset through WWII.

Adding to My Short Position in Potash

Regarding your first paragraph, I agree that simple explanations are often correct. However, simple and elegant are not mutually exclusive. Simple solutions are often the most elegant.
Otherwise, an interesting piece.

The Real Reason FDIC Is Going Broke

Another example of money-bought political influence trumping common sense. Another example of the need to clean House in Congress. Term limits, crystal clear transparency, and above all, a tuned-in citizenry would go a long way to a fix. (I know, more wishful thinking).

Don't Blame Mark-to-Market for This Crisis

Bookvalue, your bet is foolish.
You're all hot under the collar for little reason; to my knowledge, no institution has been made to M2M, otherwise few banks large or small would be left standing. Are you railing against M2M out of fear that it will be applied? Isn't the problem that no one knows what is a reasonable value for the toxic assets? No rational entity would buy the junk with the markets in steep decline and no floor in sight. The only reasonable implication in your posts is that some of these assets at some point in the future may be worth more than their sale today would bring. I hope that future comes; maybe it will. You have still not addressed the issue of what to do with the evaporation of NAV, the funds that through default or foreclosure are gone (and, will be going as this debacle snowballs through this year) and never coming back. That collosal sum alone is enough to push many institutions into insolvency. To somehow blame an accounting rule for the problem is akin to blaming Obama for your 401k decline.

Don't Blame Mark-to-Market for This Crisis

Bookvalue, I'm no "MTM purist" or "FASB purist" and I assure you I have nothing to do with the loss of anyone's job or wealth destruction of any kind. My point is that assets purchased near the top of a bubble are unrealistically priced, and anyone (individual or institution) who took the risk of purchasing at that level are now paying for poor judgment. You imply that you think those prices were reasonable, and that it's reasonable to assume that they will again climb to that level. Take a look at the average house prices over the last 50 yrs then come back and tell us if you feel the same way. The market determines what something is worth; hoping otherwise is wishful thinking. If you think that the 950 sq ft 3BR 1BA down the block some guy bought in 2006 with a NINJA ARM that's now in foreclosure is worth the $650K he paid for it, do us all a favor and go fork over $650K to the bank whose balance sheet the place is stinking up. You're not buying? Then come up with more than wishful thinking to replace the honesty inherent in M2M. The money that is now the gaping holes in these balance sheets is gone, and your wishful thinking is not bringing it back.

Don't Blame Mark-to-Market for This Crisis

Assets are worth what the market says they are worth. Miami condos and Vegas tract homes are not worth what borrowers paid for them back in 2006. Chunks of credit card debt that has been or will be defaulted upon will not be repaid. The ABSs that were created from these pools of junk and sold to the institutions now crying for M2M relief are not going to return to their original purchase price. To say otherwise is demonstrating wishful thinking. Wishful thinking will not pull us out of this mess. Seeing things clearly will point the way to a solution.

Part of the larger problem is that more of us aren't as angry as the author of this post.

Next In Line for Bailout? Life Insurance Companies

The gov't will not allow AIG to fail, not until GS, Merrill, and the others have been made whole throught the AIG bail funds. It pays to have friends in high places, that's why they pay their friends up on high.

Geography of the Current Recession

It's interesting that many of the areas with high unemployment are rural counties. Although, if you factor in the number of folks producing and selling methamphetamine, the picture would look rosier.

A Stairway to Retail Heaven (Part 2)

<<"My tax dollars are not their emergency fund!!!!"

So true- your tax dollars and mine are paying for the Bush wars and tax cuts to the upper eschelon in the early 2000s. The future tax dollars of your sons' and mine are their emergency fund.

A Stairway to Retail Heaven (Part 2)

As bad as things look here in the ol' USA, they're looking worse most everywhere else. Europe: worse off financials, the EU a patchwork of relative haves and definite have nots, wider Europe an accentuation of what's going on in the EU, with strong nationalist/fascist/ul... movements just below the surface everywhere. China: barely able to keep the lid on social unrest even with an 8-10% growth rate; they will be gunning down comrades Tienanmen Sq style all over that huge country with the serious slump that is hitting them; the place is in danger of coming unglued. India: too locked up in ethnoreligious disputes to have a chance at long term stability. Middle East: populist uprisings threaten the monarchs as oil prices stay low and the fields decline.

We are set up perfectly for a repeat of the last depression- years of trickling along, a shadow of our former selves, only to be jolted out of it by a calamitous continent or world wide conflict. Some differences between then and now: nukes (which are entering less and less secure control); populations, now 3x higher than in the 30s, with all attendant shortages of vital commodities; debt loads of the bigger powers- our creditors are unlikely to have the desire or capability to provide for the kind of government spending that will be necessary to provide for the most basic social safety net if things tumble down on their present trajectory; without said net, 20-25% of 300 million people can sure create a bunch of unrest if they are sufficiently cold and hungry.

The state of the US retail sector may be a distant, minor afterthought given what the next 5-10 years may bring us. The staid, conservative Swiss may be in the best position with their mountain redoubts and fully armed populace.

A Stairway to Retail Heaven (Part 2)

Lilguy wrote:
>The question is--and here you (like everyone else I've seen look at this) are somewhat less persuasive--whether this new saving and prudent spending consumer will actually stick around for awhile after he/she has disgorged the debt and re-built (or actually built for the first time) real savings for retirement, education, vacations, whatever.

The answer, I'd say, is provided by those who lived their adult lives through the last depression (for me, my grandparents). They were always very frugal, did for themselves their whole lives, lived well within their means. I'd say J.Q. is spot on in saying that the consumer (of the 2000s) is not coming back. When one faces the specters of unemployment, hunger, social unrest, a general lack of security, that tends to change behavior and outlook.

Doug Casey: What to Do in 'The Greater Depression'

User 366006: prudent sentiments, but try going to professional school paying all expenses as you go. Only children of the wealthy entering the professions? Doesn't sound like the American Dream to me.

Everything Is Backwards, But We Can Endure

Glad I read this. Great perspective- there is much to the lives we lead; life is a gift. Maybe this downturn will lead people to rediscover that the simple things are often the most enjoyable.