kruser53

Thoughts on Last Night's Speech by the President

Fred Wilson - - -

I appreciated your comments. I disagree with some of your opinions but I am loathe to share my thoughts here because "who the hell is kruser53".

How CNBC Squandered Roubini and Taleb

When "reporters" and "interviewers" are more interested in expressing their own views, no matter how narrow, than in analyzing news and drawing out the views of others, you can't expect any more than you get from some of the staff on CNBC, MSNBC and Fox.

I would say, though, that the entertainment value is sometimes elevated, even if the intellectual and information level is not.

The Seduction of America

Seduced indeed! As with all seductees, we end up being screwed.

Evidence That Big Inflation Is Coming

I think this article does a good job of laying out a controversial opinion. It does have some logical lapses (as many commenters have pointed out) but it dehinitely gets a discussion going.

I am surprised at two things:

1. So many comments have negative ratings when they have presented very logical arguments. I feel thumbs down are merited only by opinions unsupported by logic or fact, mis-statement of fact, or faulty logic. I have often given a thumbs up for well argued opinion with which I disagreed.

2. This article was given an "Editors Choice" when an ill-advised paragraph near the end turned it into an info-mercial.

Housing: Where Is the Bottom?

Great article. The author has tied together a lot of recent news and analysis and added to it.

How Much Downside Could Still Exist?

Rakesh Saxena:

You have written some good articles, but this is not one of them. There are too many unelaborated generalities. One example: "And, as far as systemic risk is concerned, Ben Bernanke’s definition is proving to be entirely academic, restricted by numerous, self-serving scholarly texts of the 1929-1939 era." What value does that statement have without an explaination of "self-serving"?

You have enumerated a number of the important issues for the current time and coming years. But the value of the article stops there. It's like you started to make a sandwich and stopped when all that was done was to put out two slices of bread. Where's the beef?

boats:

You wrote: "There you go confusing freedom and capitalism. Capitalism makes slaves of 99% of the population."

If I accept your statement, then I would add to it. Communism makes slaves of 99.9% of the population. But hunter-gatherers are 100% free.

Let's Hurt the American Financial Services Industry

Felix - - -

There needs to be accountability for this crisis. If the government was an enabler, fix the government. If there is any question about possible illegal activity in the financial sector, investigate. If anything is "too big to fail", break it up. Above all, regulate lobbying in a way that (1) assures transparency and (2) makes all lobby activity public record and (3) provides a mechanism for public input to (support or counter) all lobbying activity.

You have written a good article. The position of Mr. Yousefzadeh does not make sense. Do we expect that the perpetrators of this mess (or the enablers, or the unaware who should have known) are the best to fix the problems and define the new financial system structure? I think not.

Zatzright - - -

I'm sorry, but your comment doesn't make sense to me.

John Hussman: Prepare for Negative Surprises

John Husman: doom and gloom and, unfortunately, likely correct. The bad news I anticipate relates to realization that there is no "bad bank" plan. The bank rescue plan is a can that keeps getting kicked down the road. I don't think the market has recognized that yet. I agree that there may be negative surprise in the employment area.

Five Predictions for This Market

All this talk by people who could make over $250,000 but won't because their tax bill will go up 3.6%, reminds me of the petulent child who says: I'll kill myself and then you'll be sorry.

How Much More Will Housing Prices Decline?

Thanks for the housing update. Your estimate of 8-10% more to drop is similar to the estimates I have seen from many other sources, although a few have predicted larger drops to the bottom. The few estimates I have read that we are nearly to the bottom I have not considered credible.

On another note, I prefer to wait for the Case-Shiller report on housing. NAR has not been as reliable, in my opinion.

The U.S. Economic Stability Plan: Glimmers of Hope Fading

Tim Duy,
Very good article. It is amazing how hard it is to do the right thing when it means smashing a few friends. The economic team knows the right thing to do in the abstract, but can't face reality when they know the people personally. I have read so much about this problem and the only thing that makes sense to me is some sort of nationalization process that keeps politics out of the management process - independent boards of directors and management (a la RTC).

Bob Lunn,

Good idea: segregate the problems and address them in priority order, with careful analysis of synergies. I would suggest that "fixing" house prices is counterproductive if it delays getting them down to historically stable valuations. I have read several analyses of what this is and it seems a lot of consensus exists for stability much below current price levels, as much as 15% to 25% below the current prices (averaged nationally). Artificially propping up prices will only delay reaching stability.

Consider_this,

The problem you point out with Fannie Mae style take-over is avoided if the government simply buys the stock in insolvent banks at market prices. This is about $50B for C and BAC at the present time. This process also keeps the banks as running establishments and all CDS relationaships remain in place, as do all capital structures. The bank(s) can then be reorganized and sold back into the market as IPOs of their sound business units, with the government owned unit keeping the assets of undetermined value until they can be sold, maybe years down the road.

I will repeat my belief that government ownership must be kept separation from the operations of the bank(s).

This is the only process that makes sense to me if I look at my interests as a taxpayer/investor. All the other manipulations being discussed run the risk of the government taking risks with my (taxpayer) money in order to provide possible benefit to current management.

To all commenters,

This is an excellent comment stream. Let's keep getting some more good proposals on the table. This is not an insolvable problem, but it appears that way to us because none of us have the entire solution.

True Unemployment Numbers

Wow! A real original research paper right here on SA. This goes way beyond the category of analysis, which many SA authors do so excellently. This is original thinking and provides a thoroughly solid foundation for future analysis.

Imagine! Defining the level of employment (and unemployment) by counting the man-hours worked instead of counting the number of people leaning on shovel handles. It doesn't seem an original idea, but since it appears to be a new definition maybe it is (an original idea). I believe that many have focussed on the shorter average work week and the increasing numbers of part-timers, but the author has put it all into one simple package. And the package makes perfect sense.

The Declining Usefulness of Debt

This is such a simple presentation of some very profound information. This entire subject of the productivity of debt seems central to the subject of public policy planning, but I doubt that it is high on the radar of anyone in Washington. Let's hope that can change. That would be the "Change We Need".

The Heretics of Finance

I have always had an oversimplified summary view of technical analysis as a way to study supply and demand. If you consider the action of sellers as supply and the action of buyers as demand you may get my connection.

Does 'Full Nationalization' of Banks Matter?

Cautious - - -

The nationalized bank needs an independent board of directors and new management with a firewall between it and government. The bank might be government owned but can not be government run. This is a draconian move but it might be the cheapest way to go in the short run and the most profitable to the Treasury (taxpayer) in the long run. I read a coment elsewhere this morning that proposed something like this.

The other factor to consider is "too big to fail". As we come out of this, we need to figure out a way to keep banks (and anything else) from becoming "too big to fail". The citizens deserve a capitalist system where the capitalists can not become so huge that the citizens become slaves.