patrick.net

Danville,

I don't think the world's government will tolerate a complete blowout because if that were to happen, buying a house - immobilier, as the french call it, would be the last on your mind. The lifestyle as we know it, will end. You should also try to make your asset as easily transferable across the border as possible, because there will be martial laws, border control, exchange and capital flight restrictions. Historically, real estate was always worth nothing in a very chaotic financial situation, why do you want to tie yourself down to an illiquid asset when an urgent need of fleeing may arise?

But, I think the most possible path is, we will print some, let it blow up some, then print some afterwards, and a home can be a good store of value if you
1) acquire a house at a reasonable value to your pay
2) can lock down long-term rates, and
3) have good job security

My biggest problem with buying now is, I think there are too many variables out there pushing different ways, and housing is such an illiquid, leveraged asset, so it doesn't seem prudent to commit yourself to a place which will certainly go through plenty of rough rides in the next decade or so.

BTW, Jumbo 30-yr is now above 9%, and HP just announced a big layoff. All things are pointing towards a much more corrected bay area housing price.

http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-74a.pdf

Pg 24/25 listing the top 25 banks' toxic exposure, in the trillions.

Now, look at the bank asset, and look at their toxic waste exposure, some as high as 1:70 ratio, completely disgusting. If we are really serious about printing to help them fulfill these obligations, Zimbabwe, here we come.

Duke Says:
I swear that by putting the taxpayer behind the bond-holder [Paulson] is favoring Chinese banks over US tax-payers.

Not a surprise at all. Here is an excerpt from the motherfucker's Wikipedia entry:
"In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that: "Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times."

Just whose side is the bastard batting for?

Here is hoping he catches syphilis from his dog.

OO :

even though they have exposure of trillions , you need to take in to account that its highly leveraged. You don't have to fix the leveraged part, you have to fix the underlying asset/mortgage and the leveraged part gets fixed automatically. The actual calculation of what the tax payer will ultimately pay should be something like this :

(Total value of US holdhold in 2005 peak - real value based on case schiller index) + what ever was extracted in all the financial institutions as bonuses , pay , dividends already paid to investors based on the peak home values.
I don't see where else the money went ? and why we need to pay it ?
All the other numbers we are talking are notional values
OO : correct me if i am wrong.I am just lookinf at big picture to figure out rather than use the same jargon that finance uses which got us in to this mess.

Well at least we are seeing some dissenting opinions from members of Congress. I hope they don't cave. Or is it all just choreography for the masses? Paulson's "No Banker Left Behind" initiative is pure insanity. So many on this blog are thinking in extreme terms..fighting in the streets, hyperinflation etc. I am too. Do we have something like the Batman motif light in the night sky to tell RandyH we could use the palliative effect of one of his posts? If we fire up the searchlight and cast giant "RH" on the night clouds over Gotham will RandyH help us out?

in other words,

The money which was burned during this bubble without actually creating real wealth :

(Total value of US holdhold in 2005 peak - real value based on case schiller index) + what ever was extracted in all the financial institutions as bonuses , pay , dividends already paid to investors based on the peak home values.

All the other money should still be in the system.

am i missing something here ?

"Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs.."

@SP: Totally. Guess who one of Merrill's biggest bondholders was before it went on the Treasury's dole and swooned in the arms of BofA? Yes, the Chinese government.

snmr,

if all the banks of the world sit down at a table and nullify each other's derivative contracts in a balance sheet neutral way, I am sure we do not need to pay much, but that will involve many legal experts, inter-government negotiations etc. and I am not sure if they are doable in a very pressed time frame.

But the key is leverage. Since banks are so leveraged, any movement in the market asset price or interest rate is going to bankrupt one and bring down the rest, and that is the systemic collapse. And it is the systemic collapse that the government and the worldwide financial community is afraid of.

OO wrote : "But the key is leverage. Since banks are so leveraged, any movement in the market asset price or interest rate is going to bankrupt one and bring down the rest, and that is the systemic collapse. And it is the systemic collapse that the government and the worldwide financial community is afraid of."

so we need to stop the movement in the market asset price which in my opinion should not exceed the

(Total value of US holdhold in 2005 peak - real value based on case schiller index or whatever total mortgage the US economy can service)

snmr,

I do not know derivatives well enough to say how it unwinds vs the housing price. I don't think anyone knows, even Warren Buffet himself says he gave up after reading these derivative contracts (300+ pages) for many hours.

Another Goldman ex-co CEO currently teaching in China's Tsinghua University to strengthen his bonds with the elites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Thornton

1) acquire a house at a reasonable value to your pay
2) can lock down long-term rates, and
3) have good job security

1) Find a boomer who does "get the led out" on Friday
2) Get a picture of Santa Claus buggering the Easter Bunny
3) have good job security

fuck. -does +does not

These are the numbers for the fake wealth we blew away and need to pay back.

housing bubble : 12 trillion

Internet bubble has 7 trillion.

I think if the fed and paulson manage this crisis well, we will get through it.
Ofcourse , we are borrowing too much from our future and creating bigger and bigger bubbles.
This should not be end of the world if managed well.

more data : http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081908

700b will not fix it. Its just a way to buy on a revolving basis the bad paper.
once Govt aquires all the bad paper. the total losses would be aorund 12T.

whoa, whoa,whoaaaaa, wait just a minute, I take from the tone of this thread that the BA isn't paved with gold bricks and you can't really get rich from borrowing money and that the system is gamed for the gain of 0.000014% of the population? Come on now, why the fuck do you hate Amerika?

No new paradigm?

McCain said, “Carly Fiorina is a role model to millions of American women,” pointing out that she rose from working as a part-time secretary to heading HP. He added: “I’m proud of her record.”

I am gonna puke, Fiorina's dad was the dean of UT Austin Law School and a federal judge, and she was touted as a self-made business executive working her way up. Grandpa McCain, get a brain scan will ya?

Lucent was a fraud, and HP at that time was being too PC in search for an outsider and/or female CEO, so Carly was hired. She is also very strange, once on Bill Maher show I saw her kept trying to lecture people while making really bad arguments for her points. I had to puke when she said we need more H-1B's because we are not graduating enough engineers, coming from someone with a medieval studies major. The bodyguard and GulfStream IV just added to her "mystique".

NewToBA Says:
Great article in the Asia Times. even they see the writing on the wall.

Asia Times Online has seen the writing on the wall about FOUR years ago. In fact, it was one of the earliest places where I found a series of articles Henry CK Liu that woke me up to the magnitude of this scam.

Yes, not only do they see the writing on the wall, they saw it long, long ago when the US media was still lapping up Greenspan's drool.

Henry CK Liu is the son of a prominent Chinese communist founder, also a big power broker in the last century. I believe that CK Liu deflected after the Tiananmen Massacre.

The Original Bankster Says:
what will happen when all these CDS/CDOs collapse? Does that just mean no more Credit Cards? No more student loans? are these derivatives representing all consumer debt in all forms?

Don't be afraid - that is just Hank Paulscam's way of scaring a bunch of congresspeople into making him Führer of the Treasury.

Consumer debt (at much more sane levels) existed for centuries before CDS and CDO and other derivatives showed up.

If this system goes under, another credit system will start growing literally the next day. All this talk about "credit being frozen" is just code for "banks don't want to mark to market". If they drop prices, there is a market - just like housing, heh.

“Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times.”

I say, I just had a capital idea. Let us force the SOB to default on debt to China. The day after that, I will be happy to buy the knob-gobbler a one-way ticket to China, so he can go stutter an explanation in Beijing as to exactly why he was unable to do their bidding.

I hear the Chinese government has a rather charming way of dealing with fuckers who stiff them.

By the way, in a perfect world, this would all happen _after_ Hank catches syphilis from his dog.

SP,

you are mistaken. The Chinese government has carried out "extermination" missions overseas, mostly in surrounding countries in Asia and South America. Maybe they will make an exception for Paulson.

This should really make TOB's day. Try not to get spooge on the keyboard while you're reading this, will ya?

CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers
Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi.

Other executives said that they were lucky to escape with their lives. “I locked my door from inside and prayed they would not break in. See, my hands are trembling even three hours later,” one Italian consultant told reporters.

I wonder what they would do to someone like Hanky-Panky Paulson. Say what you will about the Indians, TOB, they seem to know how to deal with CEOs. Gotta respeck dat.

My favorite word of the moment: "Bludgeoned"

What a nice, unambiguous word.

OO Says:
McCain said: “Carly Fiorina is a role model to millions of American women”

Someone tell the senile old bastard that statement is an insult to American women on so many levels. As far as I know, most American women don't aspire to make a career out of colossal fuck-ups.

Hope she catches syphilis from Paulson (who I am still hoping will get it from his dog)

SP Says : Hope she catches syphilis from Paulson (who I am still hoping will get it from his dog)

If Fiorina catches it , i guess mccain would catch it too ?

SP says :

"CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers
Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi."

If american people do the same, they will fix the moral hazard issue we are facing now :-)

letter from Economists to congress:
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/mortgage_protest.htm

The Original Bankster Says:
India to be what it is… a barbaric backward culture

Coming from someone like you, that is rather hilarious. Lets not get carried away here.

They bludgeoned a dirtbag who screwed over his workers - given a chance, how many of you have wanted to do the same to your boomer-fuckwad CEOs? The law recognizes three kinds of homicide - criminal, excusable and justifiable. They should add a fourth kind - "highly recommended". :-)

Killing a 'warning to management'
September 25, 2008

INDIAN Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes has shocked industrialists by saying the lynching of a CEO by a mob of sacked workers on Monday should serve as a "warning" to management to show compassion.

Mr Fernandes blamed the brutal murder on "simmering labour discontent" and warned businessmen not to push contract workers too far.

He said managements were often in a position to give workers permanent jobs but only gave contract work.

Nandan Nilekani, chairman of software giant Infosys, accused Mr Fernandes of giving the murder "a totally different spin".

"Nothing can justify the lynching of any person and no dispute can be settled by murdering an adversary," he said.

Credit Crunch to Stay Until Bank Leadership Goes
Thursday August 21, 2008

Nassim Taleb has a reputation for straight talk, and his books provided foresight and insight into the current crisis. In a recent Bloomberg on the Economy show, Taleb reassures us that he's won't mince words. He claims that the credit crunch and economic bumps will stay around as long as top management at financial institutions does.

Taleb compares the banking crisis to medical care: the doctors killed all the old patients, and now the same doctors are claiming that they can save our new patients. Their views on risk and management did not keep us out of trouble, so they won't get us out of trouble.

To hear more, download the Nassim Taleb interview (MP3 File).
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vq9bffStoNko.mp3

Bush is speaking at 9pm. Anyone want to bet against that this is going to be some bs about how congress needs to come together in true bipartisan fashion and screw the people with a blank-check bailout bill?

I think the strong manufacturing sector will buoy all storms. The US is fundamentally strong, we make so much stuff that everyone wants do buy. Don't we?

I think you should ask yourself, "who is responsible for this"?

The Boomers!

I think the best course of action is to elect a no talent assclown boomer seeing as the previous two did such a good job.

FUCK YOU, I WAS AT WOODSTOCK.

Hitler gave good speeches also, and! without a teleprompter.

I hope you die before you get old.

http://nowallstreetbailout.com/

Sign the Petition to Congress
"We are signing this petition in opposition of a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. Banks and their millionaire CEO's should take losses for risky lending, not taxpayers."

TOB, the Fed is already giving them loans directly in the form of the TAF. Problem is, the Fed is running out of treasuries in their coffers. If they keep playing the game they have been playing, they would need to print more money. And since they are already worried about inflation, I'm guessing they decided against that route, and instead want to steal it from us.

Meanwhile congress thinks we are outraged about compensation packages when really it's the whole fucking plan that stinks. The only people that want this thing to pass are traders, because it will make their stock prices go up for 2 days.

Let the banks eat the pile of shit they created.
I'm willing to take the consequences just to see them burn.

http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/Economy.htm

Rebuilding Homeownership

Homeownership remains key to creating an opportunity society. We support timely and carefully targeted aid to those hurt by the housing crisis so that affected individuals can have a chance to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home’s market value. At the same time, government action must not implicitly encourage anyone to borrow more than they can afford to repay. We support energetic federal investigation and, where appropriate, prosecution of criminal wrongdoing in the mortgage industry and investment sector. We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all. We encourage potential buyers to work in concert with the lending community to educate themselves about the responsibilities of purchasing a home, condo, or land.

Republican policy aims to make owning a home more accessible through enforcement of open housing laws, voucher programs, urban homesteading and – what is most important – a strong economy with low interest rates. Because affordable housing is in the national interest, any simplified tax system should continue to encourage homeownership, recognizing the tremendous social value that the home mortgage interest deduction has had for decades. In addition, sound housing policy should recognize the needs of renters so that apartments and multi-family homes remain important components of the housing stock.

TOB,
The Fed currently has around $480 Billion left in Treasuries. Of that, $185 Billion has been swapped out through the TSLF. They have only about $295B left to throw at the problem (well, plus a $40B injection from the Treasury last week), though some of that is already spoken for (see AIGs credit line). But most importantly, the toxic crap is still owned by the banks (or at least that is still the pretense at this point). Clearly, though, the Fed will continue to need help from the Treasury to continue on this trajectory.

McCain is pulling a fast one to try to look like a man of action, all the while trying to avoid to face Obama in debate on Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_el_pr/mccain

I predict this sneaky move will backfire on him, Obama is too smart to let him score cheap points with this posturing.