patrick.net

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.

Btw, Lieberman looks very much like Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).

This is from Patrick's links:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/why-we-should-let-housing-prices-keep-falling/?ei=5070&emc=eta1&ref=patrick.net

Someone commented:

Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.

The mess was most definitely caused by a Democrat president.

OO, the world is definitely brewing something. Sometimes, wars are inevitable. If there is a next world war, I prefer to have a strong military leader that will not hesitate to annihilate the enemies.

The coming conflicts are not tea parties. I am not sure if Obama is up to it.

Peter P ,

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.

Peter P,

but I don't want to fight other people's war, like this Iraq War. I fight for my own interest, I don't care for Israel either way, if they are acting as our agent in the Middle East, we can supply them with armaments (with a discount of course), and let them fight that war. Israel is only as important to the US as the oil reserve left in the Middle East, nothing more.

No, I will not dispatch American soldiers to fight a regional war for another country whom we are supposed to dick around.

A smart President deploy other country's resources to fight for Americans, not to deploy American resources to fight for other country.

The real problem was mortgage debt securitization.

They are all part of the same problem. Securitization works if failed loans are allowed to be liquidated.

The problem is our unwillingness to let people fail.

If housing prices are too high for some, giving them toxic loans will not solve the problem.

If housing prices are crashing down with the entire financial industry, injecting excess liquidity will not help.

Most of the times, doing nothing IS the best thing a government can do.

A smart President deploy other country’s resources to fight for Americans, not to deploy American resources to fight for other country.

I totally agree.

But oil is too important. Besides, I doubt we are fighting for the benefit of other countries.

So long as Iraq remains an oil war, I have no objections over it.

If you ask me, the whole thing was intentional.

I won't be surprised either. It stops inflation. Who benefits from deflation?

OO says :
"A smart President deploy other country’s resources to fight for Americans, not to deploy American resources to fight for other country"

What if your country is in control of people who are from the other country.
Most of the important institutions in US like fed bank, news media, banking and white house is filled with people who are more than sympathetic to the other country.

Its not as simple as we think so.