Troubledwawa's Comments (84)

“"After reading the AIG Audit Report, if you don't believe the Fed needs more transparency, your retirement account may continue floating in the water too."

I hope not, but it seems like anything is possible right now - except a return to the good old days.”

“Thank you Maria!

I also like Marcy Kaptur...”

“Research, that is a nice profile. And thank you for sharing.

I think we may have to bring back the WPA and the CCC, or something very similar, to train folks on those new technologies for now, and train again as technologies develop in the future.

We may as well, 17.8% (U6) unemployment is already too big of a problem for the normal "market forces", "invisible hand", or what ever you want to call it, to handle. It could easily take 10 to 15 years to reemploy all the people - even if we had something as big to work towards, like building the Internet. This is the time to turn this big ship around, and your vision is obtainable, imho.”

“"And all this has gotten us is GDP growth of a little more than 3% if we are lucky. Or to put it another way, we've added 9 dollars of debt for every 1 dollar of growth. .This stimulus spending isn't free money. It comes at a cost." One item that I've been watching loosely, has been the dollar index. In Q3, it declined around 3 to 4 percent. The stimulus's success can be measured somewhere in between helping save some jobs, but coming up short of jump starting the economy.

We need something that gets cash to Main Street more directly. I'd like to see a modern day version of what FDR did in the 30's, when he put people to work and payed them directly. We have work that needs to be done on roads like they did back then, Additionally, we should start training people for windmill and solar installations, and building the digital grid. Yeah, it's throwing labor at the problem, but it's also getting money to where it's needed most - Main Street, instead of Wall Street.

Speaking of Wall Street, it's also time to lessen the burden on the tax payer and give Wall Street a haircut. Everyone else has got one so far, why not them?

Thanks for the insight Garrett!”

“http://sacrealstats.blogspot.com/2009/07/deutsche-bank-sacramento-resale-market.html

At the bottom of the blog is a Deutsche Bank report that came out in June that reported what the shadow inventory was around the country. You'll find that 25%-30% is a conservative estimate, to say the least.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OjftCEBUcYQ/Skt8o0J1ZHI/AAAAAAAAFUo/lQQu-KgwGEo/s1600-h/figure_18.PNG

From that report is a chart showing US cities, local MLS listings versus distressed inventories. And a comparision between bubble and non-bubble markets.”

“Another wonderful article from you Garrett. As the dust is now beginning to settle (a bit) from last November thru February's world wide roller coaster ride, it's becoming more clear that many of the worldwide fiat currencies have printed too much money.

You wrote: "The dollar will not be allowed to collapse. Instead its decline will be managed." - Very true. But let's not forget that the decline is now invidedable. When President Obama announced his intention of renominating Ben Bernanke, he turn to Ben and said to the effect of "after the nomination, it will be time to start mopping up those dollars".

Translation, the Fed will be raising interest rates. They'll do it as long as they have to defend the dollar, while keeping a very close eye on the economy. It's starting to feel like the Fed may not be able to wait until next year to start mopping.

You wrote: "Imagine that worldwide government selling of this asset has turned into worldwide government buying of this asset for the first time in over 40 years." - Back in the mid nineties, many European Central Banks joined us and others in selling gold. They also had a 10 year plan to accomplish selling all of it - a full steam ahead operation.

Now it's full steam ahead buying back the gold. So much for the fiat currencies.”

“Thank you Garrett, you've shown us once again that you get it. It's all about jobs now, and your chart accurately displays that there's no end in sight to the losses.

I hope for all of us that President Obama takes the initiative and removes Bernanke, Summers, Geithner, and Rubin from his economic team. Right now, I don't see myself supporting or voting for him in 2012, like I did in 2008. I thought I was going to see a change from BCBC.”

“Chris, thanks for your article. To be honest, I haven't been as aware as you are about the health care industry's influence on the Senate Finance Committee (I've been more focused on the dollar and jobs lately)...

But last Friday night, Bill Moyers had an excellent piece on Max Baucus that put it pretty straight forward - http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/watch2.html - It's about 5:30 and I encourage people who are catching up a bit, to watch. It's enlightening, to say the least.”

“And to think that at sometime in the near future, Ben Bernanke is going to have to defend the dollar.”

“Looks like 2010 is shaping up to be another bad year for the Republicans. In this article from Bloomberg, 64% of voters trust President Obama on Health Care over the 25% that trust the Republicans.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aw2PamI0GqrU

Also, voters support the public option 61% to 35%, even though 71% believe it will add to the deficit.

The tide is shifting folks, and the party of no looks like they are going to take the brunt of it.”

“Great article Iris!

You've touched so many parallels between Iceland and the US, I don't even know where to start. It's amazing to me how the 1/3rd of the population that voted for the party that caused most of this, still supports that party.

I hope Iceland can pull out of this mess...”

“And what's this do for the dollar?”

“Thank you Garrett, you're one of the few that get it.

You wrote "There is starting to be talk about a return to normalcy, but consumer access to credit continues to dwindle." Normalcy seems to be a relative term right now, from what I'm observing. To some people, a return to normalcy would mean going back to pre crash levels, where no money down loans were the rage.

However, I think a return to normalcy is going back to the days where a person saves their money to buy a home, car, or any other expensive item. They will have to save for the 20% down payment, and put their skin into the game, so to speak.

It's just going to take some time to get there, and there won't be a bottom until we do. The deflation cycle has just begun.”

“After "occurring", please this line:

The data in lines 2, 3, and 4 look good, yes, but it doesn't show that the overall inventory is still growing due to the monthly rate of foreclosures outpacing total sales: organic (me to you); new; foreclosed; and existing home sales.”

“Hale,

The problem with the arguments are presented in items 2, 3, and 4, is that the data used to compile those arguments, do not take into account the unprecedented amount of foreclosures that we are witnessing - especially here in the bubble states. That's why I think the conclusion that housing has bottomed, is wrong. The logic is correct, but the data is missing the true story of foreclosures.

The banks have been (for better or for worse) holding houses off of the MLS, otherwise known as "shadow inventory". They have their reasons and not all are bad. But the bottom line is, the amount of houses being sold, especially in the bubble states, don't even come close to the amount of foreclosures that have been occurring.

The first time I heard the term "shadow inventory was almost two years ago, from a blogger named Mr Mortgage on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkQz9Aw4dNo&feature=PlayList&p=DF990B8CF8674418&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=10
And here's his latest site: http://mhanson.com/blog

Since then, I'm starting to hear the term from Truila, DataQuick, Deutsche Bank (who actually publish a report back in June estimating the amount of housing in shadow inventory, per city), and others.

What a foreclosure represents in the world of supply and demand is two fold: another house is (eventually) put on the market, and one or two more buyers are no longer eligible for a loan (technically, demand goes down).”

“"To me," Conrad responds, "the market is living in Shangri-La­."

Apparently, that's not the first time that has happened:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/seymour062001.html

(#20 takes the cake).”

“The only person on the hill that I see producing any results on Health Care reform is Madame Speaker. And she's has acted in a consistent manner as to what the people voted for in the 2006 and 2008 elections. She has proven herself to be reliable and spot on most of the issues.

The Senate has demonstrated clearly that they are in the pockets of Wall Street. It's business as usual for them. In 2010, we need to vote out the Senators, both Democrat and Republican, who are running on the business as usual theme - What ever it takes.

The White House has lost control of this discussion. If they don't get it together, post haste, then I'll gladly support a run from Madame Speaker, for President in 2012.”

“Why can't these UBS bank account holders just pay their taxes?”

“Hale, a couple of months ago you refered to the Baltic Dry Index's increase as a sign things were possibly getting better.

Have you seen it recently? http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=BDIY%3AIND

For the record, I hope you're correct.”

“Sad, but true.”

“Thank you for help bringing High Frequency Trading (HFT) to the fore front Robert. I've been reading smaller blogs talking about HFT for a couple of months now. The give away is in how the S and P has been moving up since May on anemic volume. On heavy volume days, it went down fast. One can't judge the strength of the market by price alone, one also needs watch the volume too. The number of anemic volume days (that always went up) is what tipped a number of people off to the idea of HFT, in the first place. It's not natural.

I'm not too sure if we will be able get the computers to slow down given "the need of the market" (or whatever excuse these guys will come up with). But I've certainly liked for some time now the idea of use taxation as a tool to stop this, and give the market a chance to work for everyone. It used to be that way, if someone held a position for less than a year, there was a higher tax rate.

GS's Q2 quarterly report is just one more example of a reported profit in this economy, that really doesn't point to things are getting better, or have even bottomed. You can add in JPM and INTC to that too. Their Q2 reports were nothing to cheer about either, if one bothered to read past the headlines a bit.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth. We're in a deflationary spiral. How about a little honesty from our lawmakers, eh?”

“Exactly.

Very well said.

Thank you.”

“I'm glad you got that on, I've tried twice - LOL..

I didn't see anything wrong with what Shannyn said.”

“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFdcSu4UyxI

Here's the MSNBC interview.­..”