patrick.net

So will President Barak McCain fire BB his first week in office?

First week in office the new prez will be busy repairing the trashout damage to the WH done by GWB. W will git hammerd and tear up the joint on his last day like defeated german army fleeing paris.

If you cannot see that USD will be conveniently sacrificed at this point, you are a bit too...late.

Fed won't push rates up. Fed has control over short-term, ARM mortgage rates, not the long-term rate. ARM is based on Fed short term rate, plus a margin. The knee-jerk reaction for any government facing the same situation is to delay the blow up as long as possible.

Therefore, the Fed will not raise rate. It will keep rates artificially low for a long time, perhaps years, while trashing the dollar in the meantime. But, dollar alone will not be trashed, other currencies will soon follow.

Strategically, trashing USD is the right thing to do, because that destroys some potential competitors that have been hoarding USD, particularly China. US holds the largest share of central bank's gold reserve in the world(nearly 60% 5 years ago, the % has gone up since US sold NONE of its gold while the stupid European CBs did), is the world's largest food exporter, and has plenty of natural resources that we haven't really explored, and most important of all, US still commands superior military power. As long as you have your guns intact, nobody can come after your ass for the paper money you owe.

Even if the world returns to gold standard briefly, US will again emerge as the richest country.

We are living in a democratic country, which means, you have to side with the majority, even if they are idiots. You need to line up your position with theirs, and of course you can always figure out way to profit from such a stance.

It is a choice between job and the dollar. Job always comes first, because employment is the basis of any stable society. People on this blog may not have a fear for job loss but most Americans are living from hands to mouth. Keeping a strong dollar is in nobody's interest unless you are a saver who only knows how to buy CDs denominated in USD, which is a small and shrinking group, and in a democratic society, such a small group makes a perfect target to be robbed, legally.

Most Americans want their debt inflated away. Most Americans want their jobs intact, even if it means lower standard of living. Lower standard of living is better than no standard of living.

@ Peter P,

That GATA article is from July 2006!

OT: Zillow suddenly seems to have re-evaluated all properties in the fortress. I am finding Los Altos properties with estimates dropping by 150K-200K in the last 30 days... Either the comps are coming in _very_ low or else Zillow fiddled with their algorithm and it changed the results...

I found a lot of recent (2007) sales show up underwater by over 100K, so decided to click-around a few other properties. Seems to be across the board.

[I know we don't take Zillow's numbers to be indicative of much, but it sure is fun to look at now...]

PermaRenter Says:
ONE great puzzle about the recent housing bubble is why even most experts didn’t recognize the bubble as it was forming. Alan Greenspan, a very serious student of the markets, didn’t see it, and, moreover, he didn’t see the stock market bubble of the 1990s, either. ... Three economists, Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch, in a classic 1992 article, defined what they call “information cascades” that can lead people into serious error.

That is way too complicated. Occam's razor suggests that the shills (including The Great Mastro*) failed to see these bubbles because they were paid handsomely to NOT see the bubbles.

*not a typo

Efficient Frontier Chairman Ellen Siminoff, chairman told CNET that paid search advertising spendi in financial services has typically risen between 30 percent and 50 percent annually.

A look at the average cost-per-click in search by vertical in the U.S. for December 2007 and January 2008. Data and research are provided by Efficient Frontier. "Total finance" includes auto finance, banking, credit, financial information, insurance, lending, and mortgage. Each vertical contains data from multiple advertisers.

Average Search CPC by Category,
December 2007
Category CPC ($)
Total finance 2.76
Credit 3.09
Mortgage 2.61
Auto finance 1.46
Travel 0.64
Automotive 0.59
Retail 0.43
Dating 0.38

Average Search CPC by Category, January 2008
Category CPC
Total finance 2.70
Credit 2.95
Mortgage 2.61
Auto finance 1.68
Travel 0.65
Automotive 0.57
Retail 0.36
Dating 0.40
Source: 2008

But, dollar alone will not be trashed, other currencies will soon follow.

Well said. What are the best food plays?

I liked the tone of that letter - but this was where the guy lost my vote. He began to sound like a typical old-fart who can’t get his head wrapped around a new concept, so he gets all snobbish and “proud of not understanding it”. As if his inability to deal with it is somehow a great loss for all mankind.

U/D inheritance is not a complicated thing, just requires a relatively open mind to let go of existing assumptions and see things slightly differently.

Typical old fart? Puh-leeze. Upside down inheritance was a running joke at Teradyne, almost universally despised. I learned how to use maps during the last few months of my career and had quite a good time with them.

BTW - I was a hardware engineer (EE major) through most of my career and just kind of faked my way into a software career - apparently it worked.

(sorry; I posted this question in other threads)

Hi, I was hoping somebody here could point me to a good free foreclosure listings site? (if it even exists) All the ones I see, you have to pay to access full listings.

Much appreciated in advance.

Cheers