I am just not going to go paying any more than the equivalent of $1,000 oz (ie, $750 for 18k, $585 for 14k).  Nope, so I may shut my splurge down for a while.

The market for precious stones is d-o-w-n.  Too speculative for me, but there's money to be made at it.  Gold and silver are readily convertible.

There's a topic on airliners.net

IFLC,a subsidiary of AIG,is in REAL bad shape,this bodes badly for Boeing and Airbus.
AWAS Leasing expects up to 1000 airliners will be put in storage by the end of 2009,and up to 1600 by the end of 2010.

Of course, the Psyops World requires quaint ideas like "Rule of Law" or "Transparent Financial Transactions" are more durable than the US economy.  This isn't a trival consideration.

Oh... wait... she was serious...

I can't wait to see the MSM spin on negative bank rates.  They need to brush up on their Swedish and do some background work before it hits.  If bank rates hit minus zero here, there will be bank runs.

ETA: Cleaned up thought process and spelling...

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/333181/Obama-Playing-with-Fire-U.S.-Will-Lose-Trade-War-with-China-Pento-Says?tickers=tlt,tbt,fxi,spy,udn,uup&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=

The video in the link is worth watching as well.

Obama Playing with Fire: U.S. Will Lose Trade War with China, Pento Says

Posted Sep 16, 2009 11:00am EDT by Peter Gorenstein in Investing, Recession, Banking


President Barack Obama said on Monday he was "absolutely" certain the United States and China could avoid a trade war after slapping a 35% anti-dumping tariff on Chinese tire exports.

Let's hope he's right.   The U.S. is engaging in a potentially dangerous game with our leading creditor, says Michael Pento, chief economist with Delta Global Advisors.  "You never want to poke a stick in your banker's eye and that's exactly what we're doing with China." Pento is, of course, referring to China's $700 billion trove of U.S. treasuries and the $2 trillion in foreign currency reserves sitting in their banks.

Pento fears that if the tension builds and the dispute impairs trade with China, it could lead to "a dollar crisis and a bond crisis" if China retaliates by dumping our debt.  "In a trade war with China there will be a dramatic change in the living standards for United States citizens and we will lose," he warns. "The Chinese will get hurt for a while but they will emerge the victors."

That won't happen according to James Altucher's latest Wall Street Journal column. "Heck, with $2 trillion sitting in their banks they have more dollars than we have. Bernanke is almost as much the Chinese Fed Chairman as much as He's the U.S. one. China cares more about the value of the US dollar than we do," he argues.

Bottom line: any escalation of tensions would potentially result in what Pento calls "mutually assured destruction." Let's hope that's enough of a deterrent.

wrong thread

Sounds like Samantha's getting her own much-needed dose of "special education".

Let the freaking TEACHER's UNION bail her out with all that money they've been sending to ACORN to set up child brothels.

Hell, I'd foreclose on her just for the sheer joy of kicking some union member out onto the street.

There's a third iteration of this thread??

GOOD!. Some of the comments are quite enlightening and a bit scary.

Groucho

ARFCom;


i am gonna stop watching the news...will someone IM me when it "goes down" and a heads up whether to dig in or bug out would be cool too.  


thanks in advance

fastmover



ps when does American idol come back on...?

Just hung up with the guy that sold me my house 3 years ago. Homes are worth 60% what they were 3 years ago. 2/3rds of the homes he's showing people are bank owned.

He said they are being forced to use comps (for valuation) that are less than 1 year old, which is just crushing home values.

He also said there are condos for sale, relatively recently built, going for $18k.

Tough times. I hope we can swing out of it.

From the comments there

"If history books were the key to riches, the Forbes 400 would consist of librarians." - Warren Buffett

"All the charts, computers and mathematical models in the world cannot tell us, with any certitude, what the market will do tomorrow, next month or next year." - Peter Bernstein

What is the general pulse on a statement like this (which I just came up with and uttered today to someone who wanted my take on things):

"The best case scenario now is a simple 20% to 40% contraction of the American economy, accompanied by sincere effort to prosecute financial malfeasance.  It would be doable.  We would survive and re-emerge the stronger for it.  The alternative is worse.  Third world 'worse'."

Someone I care about is asking me for advice, and I do not want to scare her too much, but I want her to realise that things are indeed fragile..

Macman37,

I mentioned in the last thread(or maybe the first),in the three counties I follow here in SW Florida we passed last years foreclosure numbers in the first 4.5-5 months of the year. I can say with honesty that we will match that and probably exceed it it through the end of next year.

There is a damn good chance 2011 will be as bad.

Here are some examples...

This is waterfront that had a 65K seawall added in early 07...
8 /1997    VACANT   $56,500  
2 /2005    VACANT   $400,000  
11/2006   VACANT   $350,000  
9 /2009    VACANT   $41,100  

Check out the years and the values...
4 /1995   IMPROVED   $44,500  
8 /1995   IMPROVED   $100  
9 /2009   IMPROVED   $39,000

3700 sq/ft home built in 2007...This is a really nice place!
8 /2004   VAC-MULTI   $21,500  
5 /2005   VAC-MULTI   $39,900  
4 /2007   VACANT   $392,400  
9 /2009   IMPROVED   $85,000  
Still valued at 297K on the tax rolls...

Another
11/1993   IMPROVED   $130,000  
5 /1995    IMPROVED   $117,400  
8 /1995    IMPROVED   $100  
11/1997   IMPROVED   $105,000  
3 /2006    IMPROVED   $190,000  
11/2006   IMPROVED   $210,000  
9 /2009    IMPROVED   $37,900

All the way back to the early 80's!!!
3 /1981   IMPROVED   $77,500  
6 /1987   IMPROVED   $62,500  
5 /1997   IMPROVED   $79,500  
9 /2009   IMPROVED   $26,100  


Another...
5 /1987    IMPROVED   $42,000  
9 /2000    IMPROVED   $63,400  
12/2002   IMPROVED   $54,000  
3 /2003    IMPROVED   $82,400  
9 /2009    IMPROVED   $22,100

Brand new in 2005...
6 /2005  IMPROVED   $133,800  
8 /2007  IMPROVED   $100  
5 /2009  IMPROVED   $0  
9 /2009  IMPROVED   $26,300  

Some dumbass attempts a flip in 09...
6 /1990    IMPROVED   $64,500  
2 /1999    IMPROVED   $100  
11/1999   IMPROVED   $56,500  
8 /2003    IMPROVED   $139,000  
10/2006   IMPROVED   $218,300  
3 /2008    IMPROVED   $100  
5 /2009    IMPROVED   $63,000  
9 /2009    IMPROVED   $31,500


These all took me about 2 mintues to locate...
As an FYI...Sales so far this month under 250K? Right at 230.
Over 250K...11
The high end is totally stagnant. Once these start to fall the under 250 will be forced even lower.
The 25 year realtor I know said that damn near everybody is using the 8K credit and rushing to beat the deadline...

I have a pretty good view of RE due to the number of units my Parents own. If you factor in the
monster increses in commercial RE taxes since 2000,our rents reflect the same value as when
the units were purchased throughout the nineties. Basically all the  capital gains vanished
and they are not coming back. I have ZERO ability to raise rents. Heck,I am happy to have
95% paying tennants...

 
Chris




 

 


 


 

Sheeyit, man.



Why I want some pasty face ol' dude tellin me this shit?

Looks like he consipated need his prune juice.  Sittin there in his shirt an his tie like he all rich an shit, tellin me I gotta like be depress' or somethin.

He gonna buy my baby-diapers?  Hell no.  He need to shut the fuck up.  I'm changin' the channel.

AGREED.

Can you believe some people have the nerve to say ""The bank could have done more and reduced our principal,"

REALLY!

The bank should have just said NAH, forget the loan amount you agreed to.  We'll only ask you for part of it!  

Major WTF people, I wish I had the nerve to just go to the grocery store buy some sliced american cheese go home and eat a few slices then go back to the grocery store and ask them to renegotiate the price I paid for the cheese, just because, and I still get to keep the same cheese I had bought from them.

Fuck is wrong with people.

I sit around saving and planning for years to allow these dipshits to jump in and ruin the entire system for when I'm ready to make my home purchase.  It's sad that so many people don't want the real estate market to FULLY correct itself. Arrogant, Ignorant, Hasty, Selfish bastards.

Sorry, SHTF has been delayed til the spring of 2010.

Tell ya what. I wouldn't keep them ALL in the safety deposit box.

Especially if we plan on repeating history to a tee

What do you mean by well off?

If you mean middle class, works for a living, didn't take on more debt then could be handled as "well off", then i guess I am.

Being financially secure isn't hard, many just don't want to do it.

Gentlemen, what is at issue here is that the very underpinnings of our national economy are so vastly unstable –– unlike never before –– that while most of us here who have lived prudently, probably are reasonably "well off"...

... the whole thing could go in the shitter, with all of us in it.

What we are debating is not 'can I buy groceries and pay my bills next month' (all though this may be an intensely real concern for many already, no disrespect intended).

What we are discussing is how can we as individuals do two things:

Weather whatever the future holds, and

Profit from it, whether short term, or long term.

Crisis brings opportunity.  But first we have to find our bearings and hold steady in the storm.

I know a few millionaires who are absolutely scared shitless right now.



 

Historically stocks fall in the fall. Notice the stores are gearing up early for christmas? They need that money now and that ain't a good thing.
My theory is it will really start to fall 2-3 days after thanksgiving. If the black friday sales numbers are bad, well, hold on for the slide of your life.

To tack on to that: Jobs are at a bit of a premium right now... It doesn't matter what you do or if you retrain yourself, if nobody is hiring, you are boned.

I have two friends facing the possibility/probability of being let go from their jobs. I'm praying for them every night.

I think the scoffers ( I'm a partial scoffer ) look at the posts and thinks "Gee these people are all predicting a meltdown but do they know anything about economics or are they just spouting BS they read elsewhere on the net. "

Interestingly enough, timber prices continue to raise.  Two years ago we couldn't find a single container to ship lumber to China, now container prices are cheeeeeeeaaaap.  Also, white pine cabin logs, used to be a hot item and we profited from the housing boom by selling these specific logs to a nearby mill.  Now the big housing boom is in the far east.  These house log kits are going into containers and being shipped to China, Singapore and Vietnam.

So it's foreign countries that are stimulating some small sectors of "improvement" in our economy?

Actually I shouldn't have used "BS" in my post. That has a negative connotation. I didn't mean it that way.

Yup 98% of all end users of forest products right now are from other countries.   Domestic use of wood products is DEAD.



 

OK, these loans are my job right now so I may be able to clear a bit of this up.

When they reduce the principal balance, they do not write it off, it is just deferred.  I don't know of any loan modification where the principal is just removed, there may be some but not the Obama plan.

If you have a $150K loan but can only afford a $100K loan they will defer $50K in an interest free "bucket" till the borrower is caught up and can re-fi to include it back in or till they sell the house and then the bank gets it paid back first.  After the payment is deferred, they drop the interest to as low as 2% and after 3 years they do a 1% per year step for 3 years so the loans end up at 5%.

Now all of this sounds like a sweetheart deal and honestly it is but there is still a 70% redefault rate so all of this is for nothing.

Makes sense considering the costs of shipping and the devaluation of the dollar favor exportation right now for any sector that can export.

Throughout the early part of the decade most railroads were running at or over capacity, with the slow down the shipping rates have dropped to entice business on rails that are now quite a bit under capacity.

You're missing the point here.

You paid to reduce her payment.

Obama was the conduit, you were the financier.

The bank did reduce the payment, giving you your money's worth, temporarily, then jacked the monthly payments back up by adding usuary fees, so now you are out the tax money you paid to reduce her mortgage, but her mortgage payment is higher now than it was before it was renegotiated, and she will soon default.

The bank got your money, to prevent the default, and the customer will still default.

If there's any good news at all, it is that less than 5% of all mortgages qualify for the program, and the process is so inefficient that less than 1 in 25 of those has completed the process to date.

Banks are stealing again, with Obama's help, they're just not stealing very fast.

Great thread series going here. I can say that the industry I work in employing Temp workers has been flat for the most part after contracting about 30% from Oct 08 to July 09. No bump in the summer months for the most part with the exception of some hi skill trades in airlines.



I've been in this industry for 10 years and when you see 30% of the workforce laid off it gets your attention. I'm glad to be employed.



Staffing has always been a great indicator of the business trend. Right now the only trend I am seeing is downward.



What really strikes me as odd as of late was my 401k statement. I watched it lose 55% of it's value through all of this and in the last 6 months come back 30%. Something does not jive at all with that from what I can see in the business world. It has me pretty nervous that we are on the cusp of serious problems. I still invest because nobody ever got rich playing the safe bet. If I lose it all oh well.

The usual meaning of the term "dead ahead" means imminent, right now, this is it.

Well down in the article he shows where debt will be 350% of GDP, in 20 years, and we won't be able to service it.

The message is cheapened when mixed with unsupportable theatrics. The fundamental truth is diluted by "shrill", especially when "dead ahead" turns out to be ten or twenty years down the road, all in one article.

Anyone invested in 2007 lost up to half unless they pulled out in time.

Sit the recovery out, and Carl's "imminent crash" takes place next down cycle, and you enter the dark ages with your losses fully intact.

At the very same time, there are time bombs out there today, right now, that can start the dominoes toppling, including US State budget shortfalls, real estate et al, trade war with our biggest lender, a steady one to two percent dollar inflation rate over 6 months now, with a three month flat timeout just ending, printing money to pay bills and service debt, but many such time bombs have ALWAYS been a possibility, and the reason an economy ever hits bottom, the reason most investors do not get in at the bottom, is because the bottom is a damn scary place, you don;t know if it's still headed down, a sucker's rally, or a real recovery.

To pick the right time to invest, or to divest, for that matter, you need hard data, and you need calm, rational analysis, then you need back and forth discussion to hammer out the details of the information provided, as they apply to your situation and needs.

In my opinion, a headline that screams "Crash Dead Ahead", over an article that postulates and even to some degree supports "crash in twenty years if we don't change course", falls WELL short of calm rational analysis.

Just for the heck of it, I've clicked on one of the ...incendiary...ads listed next to Carl's linked column, the one with the mushroom cloud image. I was promised two lists of banks, one of banks supposedly at risk, one of banks supposedly safe. I got a warning from my browser, the site certificate did not match the provider, but I am behind two firewalls with a few honeypots and clusterbombs on my side of the demarc, so I proceeded.

They wanted a name, an e-mail, and promised not to spam me. They got all the above, and promised me my lists would arrive in e-mail in two minutes. While I was waiting, they kindly offered to sign me up for two pages worth of financial investment newsletters and circulars, which I politely declined.

Five minutes now, no lists of banks, at risk or not. I have to say this looks like a typical spam scam. If so, tomorrow or the next day, my box would have filled with financial spam, except I have pretty good spam filters, so we'll be watching in the bulk mail trash bin to see what happens.

To kill time I went ahead and clicked on the other ad, Larry's read of Bernanke's secret debt solution, same deal, at least this time the certificate matched, and only one page of investment letters I shouldn't be without. I declined the letters, did not receive my secret Bernanke report, and did receive a one page "newsletter", Uncommon Wisdom, telling me of fantastic opportunities in Asia (duh), without any specifics, other than "precious and base metals" and "all natural resources". Another advisor tempts readers with references to "natural resource companies in Canada and Mexico" who are "on the verge of extracting mineral that could make shareholders a whole lot richer" but alas, no details again. Unfortunately, he had to run before he could fill readers in, as "my flight back to the states is about to take off".

I do make credibility judgements based at least partially on the type and nature of the advertising profferred at the source.

More as more develops on the type of advertising hosted at Carl Denninger's webpage.

I have a question for investors here, who have lost significant amounts of savings and assets during the 2008 and 2009 market crashes.

What happens if, the US debt and taxation policies, which are detrimental in the fundamental sense, do in fact cause a severe dislocation of capitol, a crash of the US dollar, and dissolution of the US Government, 20 years from now?

If between now and then, the Obama hype and maneuvering, the bankers covering their tracks, and normal market forces yield a long slow recovery that you do not participate in?

Will you be able to recover your losses from 2008 and 2009? Will you have to keep working thru retirement all the way until health issues end your career in poverty?

These are legitimate questions. They are every bit as legitimate as questions about what you plan to do if the whole world melts down to zero tomorrow morning. The tactics and coverups we are discussing have worked in the past, to yield the largest bubbles in stock market history.

If you choose not to ride the next bubble, whatever it may be, have you actually found any haven for your assets that you consider safe?

Are you willing to dissociate your assets from the normal banking system, in favor of the First Bank of Mattress, knowing that to a large degree repatriating those funds will be impossible in this post 9/11 security concious world? Are you willing to dive out into paper dollars to the last penny, when already the dollar is leaving it's three month flatline in value against other currencies and metals?

Are you willing to jump completely out of conventional accounts and into gold, when gold is selling for more than it ever has before?

Or...

...are you watching like a hawk?

...recognizing that just about ANYthing is possible from where we stand right now?

...devising layered contingency plans for any possible future developments, from an end of the world crash to a boom bigger than turn of the century real estate and the dot com boom combined?

...assimilating your news sources to give you the widest read of global financial developments, in the shortest possible time expended per day?

If so....are you evaluating those news sources for credibility using every tool at your disposal, BEFORE you act on the data presented and invest your hard earned assets?

Do you have at your fingertips, BOTH a well thought out plan to re-invest in a real recovery, with liquidity hedges, limit and stop-loss orders to MANAGE your risk, AS WELL AS an end of the world plan to cash out into gold, foreign currency, real estate or other hard value, either one at the touch of a mouse click, OR a phone call, OR at a predetermined market level just in case phone lines and data lines are jammed? On 9.11.2001, at least one team of Smith Barney brokers was FAXING market orders to THE EXCHANGE FLOOR, because no other communications pipelines were viable.

Are you deliberately taking steps to avoid allowing chronic spin into your decision making process? Spin that hypes any potential recovery, as WELL AS spin that hypes any imminent disaster?

It's your money.

Take care of it as you see fit.

I will be, and I hope we all can find time to meet at the range, put some holes in some distant targets, swap some good stories, and look forward to better times.

(No bank list, no Bernanke Secret Plan, one unsolicited financial newsletter from one of the "Uncommon Wisdom" authors (Weiss) in my span box, as of 0100 lima.)


Update: I received both documents promised by the ads, both fall within the original claim of what they were supposed to be, both were delivered to my spam box, and the Bernanke report has an overt agenda, though perhaps not an unreasonable one. I am tight for time right now, cannot give either the time it deserves in review, but I do wish to note I have yet to receive any significant increase in financial type spam.

Best post of the thread.

And the upsized describes what all the econ threads are not.

We have problems, but imminent economic collapse isn't one of them.

anyone catch Ben Bernanke's press conference this past tuesday?

he sure as heck didn't have any confidence in what he was saying and his voice even sounded shaky

I appreciate the support, but I view your highlighted statement as potentially dangerous as "end of the world" pronouncements.

I can cut to the chase here, save you a whole lot of reading to make my point. Do some googling and try to answer the following questons. They're easy, should be quick.

1. What was the trigger for the main round of bank failures in the US in 1930-1931? Not the foundational conditions that existed since 1920, but the right now today triggers?

2. What was the immediate result of this round of failures, hint, Roosevelt, holiday?

3. What is the "Last National  Bank Run" and how does it potentially apply to where we stand today?

There are real problems out there.

A significant number of savvy investors have weighed those problems and for 6 months now, gainers are outpacing losers. This is not opinion, this is mathematical fact. The most savvy of those investors, do not ignore the risk, and they do not over value the risk either. They strike balance.

Blanket assertions that we cannot have any collapse right now, are not, IMO, balanced.

"Collapse unlikely?"

Well....I'll say less likely than 6 months ago, less still than 10 months ago.

"Collapse impossible?"

Flat no.

To wit, we were "nearing bottom" on the tech bubble collapse on September 10, 2001, and at that point, a whooooooole lotta people considered a collapse "impossible".

Guess what happened the next day?

Balance.

There is no substitute.

Bernanke's presser followed on the heels of the 12 Regional Federal Reserve Governor's Reports.

WSJ carried highlights from each of those regional reports, perhaps full text, don't recall.

Some better, some worse, but the median went about like this:

"Nothing has blown up yet.

Some very slight improvements in a few areas.

Employment, Real Estate, Credit, and Tax Revenues in the shitter.

Nothing appears likely to blow up tomorrow, day after prognosis unclear.

End of report."

Bernanke works for the biggest failure in the history of the White House.

The ability (and inclination) to spin "nothing blew up today" into "Recession Over, Hallelujah!" is a given.

It's called common sense lol there is ZERO good news yet stocks keep rising. I have been prepping for years and ofcourse chose gold and silver over stock and I am so glad I did. Right now I cant spend tons of money so I keep buying silver. If you have the funds then buy gold altho at this point, i firmly believe silver is a better investment as it was 62:1 last week and today it was about 58:1 (ratio silver to gold. Also , China just gave it's 1.3 billion citizens the green light to buy gold and silver ...hmmmm they must be doing that on a hunch too  

223SAINT

Don't sell them if you don't need to.

223SAINT