patrick.net

NIKKEI -952.58 -9.38%

Sweetness. TOB, time to post that economist cover again. You may have to bring that out every day now.

I am fine with the current system, only that I believe that the voters are the problem.

We need a system in which the voters themselves have to score at least 100 on IQ test, and they actually can deal with more than one issue in their head. All eligible voters have to memorize at least 5 issues the candidates are rooting for.

There should be a new rule banning people with IQ less than 100 or age great than 70 from contesting in presidential races.

And no more boner pills for boomers!

OO Says:
Ben probably needs to cut 1.5% by tomorrow. He is not pumping fast enough, hopefully he will correct that mistake soon.

Ben will pretty much have to cut. In his October newsletter, Bill Gross has already ordered Bernanke to:
1. buy commercial paper (done today)
2. cut fed rate to 1%
3. co-ordinate a worldwide rate cut with other CB's

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1007083aig1.html

Here is a copy of the AIG party invoice.

Neutron,

Any comments from Hank Paulson about this abuse of taxpayer money? I will be looking carefully for some immediate sign of leadership on this action of theft.

MST,

Barry Ritholtz of bigpicture blog fame has the following to say about the right-wingnut meme meme that Jimmy Carter and the CRA of 1977 is somehow to fault for the housing bubble and ensuing financial crisis:

From a speech back in 2004 comes this telling quote:
>

"One other thing I've done, is I've called on private sector mortgage banks and banks to be more aggressive about lending money to first-time home buyers. And the response has been really good. There's a lot of people in this -- our communities around the country that deeply care about the issue of homeownership, and they've been responsive."

- George W. Bush, U.S. President, March 26, 2004.

>

Its important to understand how this situation occurred in the first place, if we want to be able to fix it. Blaming the CRA and Fannie/Freddie is a total misunderstanding of how the problem occurred, and what we need to do to fix it now, and avoid doing it again in the future.

To repeat my prior arguments, the proximate cause of the Housing crisis were 1) Ultra-low rates; and 2) Abdication of traditional lending standards, thanks to 3) originators ability to resell mortgages for securitization purposes, and hence, 4) not have to worry about loan defaults.

The credit crisis was caused by 1) the above securitized mortgage paper, that was 2) rated triple AAA by Moody's and Standard & Poors, which then 3) Which was then "insured" by credit default swaps (CDS) -- the unreserved for, shadow insurance products 4) whose exemption was made possible by the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. That legislation exempted these derivatives from any supervision or regulation. The lack of reserve requirements is why there is now $62 trillion in CDS, many of which will never pay their counter parties the promised insurance.

If you are going to blame Fannie/Freddie/CRA, or George Bush or Barney Frank, you are missing the big picture.

Barry Ritholtz of bigpicture blog fame also had the following analysis that further links to a Newsweek article that talks about said meme:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/subprime-suspec.html

Suffice to say that the right-wing spin machine is working overtime, and MST bought the argument rather uncrtitically.

"Those executives should be fired," Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said at a debate with Sen. John McCain on Tuesday, referring to the retreat participants. Obama also said AIG should give the Treasury $440,000 to cover the costs of the retreat.

But Eric Dinallo, superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, said he could see the value of such a retreat under the circumstances.

"Having been at large global companies and knowing what condition AIG was in ... the absolute worst thing that could have happened" would have been for employees and underwriters in its life insurance subsidiary to flee the company.

"I do agree there is some profligate spending there, but the concept of bringing all the major employees together ... to ensure that the $85 billion could be as greatly as possible paid back would have been not a crazy corporate decision," Dinallo told the House committee.

I wish Roubini would stop predicting things will get worse. I wonder if he's a doomsdayer on a lucky streak, or if he just knows his shit and will call the bottom.

Obama also said AIG should give the Treasury $440,000 to cover the costs of the retreat.

440K is how many percent of 700B? My calculator has trouble displaying the infinitesimal result.

All those senators and congressmen voted in favor of the bailout should be fired.

Both Obama AND McCain are duds.

God save our Queen!

Dick-less Cheney

LOL!! Be nice.

when was the last time market didn't respond to rate cuts ?
I think its time to accept the reality that the market is at no return point.
700B was a waste of money.
Taking a hungry man to a buffet doesn't help if he is already dead !

http://wormseyevieweconomics.blogspot.com/

When will widespread panic in the housing market come to the Bay Area?

Nikkei reached 38,000 in 1990, and 18 years later, it is at 9695 We will see a similar pattern with DOW in another 2 decades. Japan showed us the way.

Well, the Japanese did pioneer miniaturization :)

justme, Bapp33

Don't know why you are worried about who wins. Did you see the debate last night? Notice that McCain mentioned his compatability with Kennedy, Lieberman, and another liberal democrat I forgot the name of, along with his ability to reach across the aisle. It seems we have two Democrats running.

I do not think McCain will have a "dickless Cheney" pulling the strings, the marionettes will be dicks like Lieberman, Kennedy, and other Democrats.

take the barak obama test (serious this time :) )

My result:

"You DISAGREED with the Barack Obama position on 44 of the 48 test questions. This means you disagree with the Obama position 92% of the time."

I am more "pro-choice" than most conservatives. Mothers should be able to abort if she thinks the child is evil or if there are financial concerns.

McCain is a LIBERAL!

But Obama is way further left.

Headset,

I cannot agree with that. Do you think Al Gore would have taken us to war? Let SEC and FED run wild and not regulate anything? How about John Kerry or Barack Obama?

There is a HUGE difference between McCain and Obama. In it is enormously important that the wrong person does not have his hand on the war-button and the de-regulation button (or "the tiller", as McCain calls it). If one did not believe this before, the last 8 years of Bush proves the thesis without a shadow of a doubt.

I cannot agree with that. Do you think Al Gore would have taken us to war?

The world would have been a worse place had Al Gore won. GWB is still head-n-shoulders better than Al Gore. That says a lot.

I have absolute faith in McCain with that red button. We need a person who would NOT think-twice about launching nuclear missiles if situation warrants.

Further de-regulation is an absolute MUST. Bush was doing just fine before the 2006 election. That said, I still blame him for losing both houses.

The whole concept of a unified Europe is ridiculous anyway. When will ECB fall apart?

I think EU will fall apart.

Russia ought to be an ally.

Forget about Western Europe. The perfect storm is upon them.

The Fact that spain and other European countries are having huge "domestic" mortgage related toxic debt issues means that fannie mae/freddie mac in USA are just scape goats.The real problem was mortgage debt securitization.
All the european countries followed US like sheep and used securitization as though whatever US does is golden.No wonder, the world is following us in the moral decay path as well.

Never believe in any theory if it contradicts common sense, you will be better off 99% of the time.

Even a shepherd in somalia can figure out that it won't work when A loans money via B to C and B is not acountable for any risk and gets only the commissions.

Perhaps London RE will become a good investment very soon.

You know what annoys me about the ECB?
If ametures like me can see the Balkanization ofthe ECBm why couldn;t the 'experts'? If idiots likeme can call for coordiated rate cuts when they could have made a difference, why can't the experts?
So where are we?
The next BA lay-off shoes to drop should be Cisco - the supplier of IT to the IBs. Junniper, Apple, Google, Yahoo.
New tax code in CA. (at a guess I would say 10.5% bracket starting at $150k)
State emplyee lay-offs.
Bleh.
As I said, prices will come down and no-one will care.

Wonder if Randy H still has those FXE puts?!

FXE options seem to have horrible spreads.

Have you guys looked into PHLX World Currency Options?

When do you guys think Euro will cease to exist as a currency?

For Euro, it is more than a banking problem. It is a econo-political problem. It surrounds a fragile union of historical enemies.

The "alternative" has never and will never go away. It is the human nature thing again.

Humanity needs a kick in the butt.

Not that OO needs any encouragement, but how about this quote:
"The action of central bankers globally is going to do two things for investors," Lutts explained. "It will debase the value of currency; and unleash — eventually — inflation."
"Not next month, not next quarter, but we think inflation is coming back."

There are very few economists who believe in the inflation story now.
Most of them believe it will be deflationary. Worst case it could be stagflation. The whole market is hoarding cash now ( deflationary).
i could never have imagined the kind of behaviour dollar is showing now ( getting stronger). Market behaves in wierd ways !

ofcourse i believe that dollar strengthening is temporary ( 1 -3 years) till we have this mess.

But gold is going up despite dollar strength. This is significant.

justme Says:
Any comments from Hank Paulson about this abuse of taxpayer money?

Paulson himself personifies abuse of taxpayer money, so I would not be surprised if he didn't care - besides, it wasn't even a Billion dollars.

There won't be inflation, as long as people's pay are not going up accordingly, there is no inflation.

There will be stagflation, because housing value and medical insurance and bogus education have lots of room to fall, so that food and energy can fill the void.

I read about the tuition lending being locked up for many smaller colleges, and when I look through the list of them (mostly in N.E.), I cannot identify anyone and I went to school around that area. Maybe there are too many "college" diploma mills that should have never existed in the first place.

So... no school money for boomer kids?

Lieberman is more Jew than American, he will send American soldiers to fight war for Israel even if it is not in American interest. It was a total mistake for Al Gore to have picked him as a running mate but I am glad he is showing his true colors.

McCain is no doubt patriotic, but patriotism is not the answer to lots of situations, or else we don't need career politicians. If Lieberman gets to dick around McCain's mind, that will be very scary.

The problem for the next decade is, we will already be on the edge because of the economic sh*t we will have to face, if someone is pushing towards war as an answer, nobody wins (except for the very rich very connected who sell armaments). Democrat, Republican, rich, poor, everyone loses.