Hawaiiborn2

Housing Is Bottoming, Along with the Economy

Apparently Charles is of the school of thought that believes if you say it enough, it will come true. Hate to be the bearer of bad news Charles, ain't happening. The only question is why would anybody with a modicum of financial brains after looking out across the economic playing field, choose of their own free will to buy a house in todays world? With a few exceptions in the US housing market, it makes no sense at all.

The President vs. Blogs - And the Future of Derivatives

Agreed - 100%. The fact that Obama's financial advisors don't is scary!


On Mar 09 12:13 PM mr freddo wrote:

>
> You write about the heart of the problem - derivatives. I agree that
> any instrument that is so complex as to be incomprehensible to all
> but a few must be banned. The CDS market must be simplified, regulated,
> and speculative bets that drove this market into the trillions, must
> be done away with.
>
> Too big to fail now refers to all of the top 20 banks and insurance
> companies thanks to the interconnecting web of counter party risk.
>
>
> We are drifting toward a Japanese style crisis management structure
> where we prop up all of the zombie banks so that counter parties
> continue to meet their obligations with government support. But that
> will ultimately cost $10s of trillions of dollars and we will lose
> a decade or more of growth.
>
> It would be better to let the next domino fall and then step out
> of the way as the entire system crashes. Then the government could
> step in and create new banks with clean balance sheets and fresh
> capital. That is what we need to get our economy moving again.

Thoughts on Last Night's Speech by the President

If you sit on the other side of the fence politically, the best way to deal with this administration over the next four years is shut up and watch this guy self destruct. Guarantee he will and repubs will start realizing the benefits two years from now.

The Fundamental Problem of Newspapers on the Internet

While the issue of advertising revs (or lack thereof) is critical, as badgolfer points out above, you cannot sustain those online grow rates when from an editorial standpoint, you are only appealing to 50% of the population (+/- 3%). Sooner or later the advertisers will acknowledge this as well, compare the demagraphics of the typical NYT reader vs. annual expenditures of the typical reader and no doubt advertising revenue will decline even more. I for one get my news from much more "independent" sources so those that advertise on NYT online will never see my business.