patrick.net

Ooh, I love herring! Best with boiled potato.

But I can only eat so much herring before getting tired of it.

Rockland "Retention." My wife was in Camden "Activation." She'd load 'em up with the 0%s, six months later I'd take the punitive rates off when they called to complain. MBNA didn't like me much, cause I gave away the farm, and I sucked at conning them into reloading whatever space was left on their cards.

Are they good?

I predict large donations of surplus canned food to the food banks come Christmas.

LOL!! I agree.

If we start seeing massive job loss, then it is time to lay in supplies.
I am talking numbers like 10% (now at 6.1%).

10% is Germany's chronic unemployment number.

Did we have food shortages during the Great Depression? Unemployment was at 25% then.

BTW EBGuy:

Consider this complete confirmation of the Nightline report. My wife worked with Cate Colombo in Camden.

how in the world will we ever service our $10T of national debt?

By working it off. Taxes will increase while government services will decrease. Look for reduced "entitlements," including welfare and military/civil service benefits. Look for a sharp decrease in our overseas bases. We may even see a tax based on savings account balances.

All this effort will just pay off a small portion in the nominal debt. We will thus be under a lower standard of living while a 2-3% long term inflation whithers the actual debt. We are talking about a century.

It is like the fellow who uses credit to acquire sports cars, tony condos, and related bling. He amasses so much debt by the time he is 35 that he will not have a positive net worth until he is 60.

HeadSet,

IMO, availability of food is not going to be a problem. The problem will be whether you can afford food or not. Food has been very inexpensive for a long time and has only recently start to rise in price. The cost of fuel, fertilizers, feed and demand for acreage has been the real reason food has risen so dramatically at the supermarket.

Believe it or not, we are about to see a surplus of food available and that is going to drive the cost down. Oil is down so it will be cheaper to deliver it and there is a glut of some commodities (I only know frozen... not grains, rice, potatoes etc.) available in warehouses across the country. Manufacturers are cutting their production and there is a lot of pressure to turn sitting inventories into cash.

A much more serious problem would be the inability to get food to distribution centers like supermarkets and food service distributors. That could happen when fuel becomes unavailable. Unless there is a worldwide fuel shortage, distribution of food is safe. That is why it is absolutley critical that this nation (and the world) seriously solves the alternative energy puzzle immediately. If there is no fuel our entire food distribution system collapses and you better be living close to good agricultural land or you are going to starve. (Hello Las Vegas and Pheonix)

WOW, Dow! What happened at 3:00 EST?

That's one hell of a PPT!

Believe it or not, we are about to see a surplus of food available and that is going to drive the cost down

I have no trouble believing that. Las Vegas and Phoenix may not have the problems with distance from farmland. It may be that the inefficient truck based delivery will be replaced by rail.

HeadSet,

The US rail system has horribly poor infastructure at the moment. They mostly run on diesel too, BTW.

A 3 day truck trip could end up as a 14 day rail trip. Also, unless your warehouse has a rail connection you need diesel to get from the rail yard to your warehouse.

A significant amount of capital to update our rail system would be a significant improvement.

well i would go with a balance of stopping power and magazine capacity. but then again nothing beats the winchester defender for just good old fashioned blasting.

but what's the fuss all about, can't they just pry up some of the gold bricks that line the streets of the bay area?

well i would go with a balance of stopping power and magazine capacity.

Magazine capacity? You mean 10+1 in Kalifornistan?

damenace,

You are correct.

The savings I am talking about would be inter-city. Trains are very efficient at moving large amounts over long distances, burning a small fraction of the fuel trucks would use ("our trains can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel"). True, the product will need to be shuttled from the railheads (no different really from wholly truck delivered freight "shuttling" to the warehouse from thier arrival at the edge of town), but the waste of using cross country trucks would be eliminated.

A central Virginia paper company recently switched from using trucks to using CSX rail to ship their products to the Hampton Roads ports. This move took 200 trucks a day off Interstate 64 between Richmond and Norfolk. The decision was driven by high fuel prices.

Can we declare the death of the JIT model?

Can we declare the death of the JIT model?

LOL! For serious users, that would only mean a longer planned lead time. Possibly more co-location and perhaps a product modification to use locally obtainable materials.

damenace, Headset,

I think it would be fantastic if we modernized our rail system.

But I'm not in favor of big-spending boondoggles such as SF-LA bullet trains. I think what is needed is smaller, smarter and more strategic investments. Invest in the rolling stock and not only in fancy tracks.

Most of all, train travel has to become sexy and glamorous again, not just a means of transporting goods, but also people. That probably has not been the case for, oh maybe 80 years. Some ideas:

1. sleeper trains SF-LA and SF-NY (etc etc). Board at SF at 11pm and wake up in LA at 7am, ready to go to a meeting.

2. broadband connections. Work on the train while traveling on business, communicate while traveling for pleasure.

3. entertainment on board

4. meeting rooms and business railcars

5. food services must be several tiers including high-end

6. choice of coach, business class and 1st class travel

7. railroad hotels

Many of the amenities exist in some form, but everything needs to be taken up several notches, and people have to learn that taking the train is where you have a good time and meet cool people.

It's a challenge, but I think it can be done. It is all about the glam factor.

PS: I also noticed that CSX radio ads that stated ”our trains can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel”. It is good start, but I think it was unfortunately mostly a PR campaign to stave off the recent drop in CSX stock price. Good try, though.

Headset,

For me it was hard to see exactly hat was going on in the market today. The pundits have not spoken yet, but I think some of the factors were

1. Bush speech
2. LEH CDS sellers must cover $0.92 on the dollar
3. JPM up and MS down because of LEH stuff?
4. G-7 meeting underway, hope for "solution" Monday.
5. ABA lobbying SEC about banning shorting of the 799+ stocks again
6. pundits had noted that market always crashes in the afternoon, time for a headfake

justme Says:
October 10th, 2008 at 6:30 am
I predict large donations of surplus canned food to the food banks come Christmas.

Yup.

Isn't the Fed increasing "liquidity" faster than any asset price deflation we are seeing?

Isn't hyperinflation already here? Just hidden?

no “bank failure friday” update today? What gives?

Have a nice weekend, folks! :)

Finance should not be banned but banksters should be allowed to fail.

LET THE BANKSTERS EAT CAKE!

I'm concerned that if banksters pick tomatoes, the price of tomatoes will soon go through the roof.

Uh-oh, Paulson is not going to try and get any voting power in the banks he capitalizes:

Paulson went out of his way to say existing shareholders would be protected, saying the government would only make the purchases through a "broadly available equity program" without any voting power, "except with the market standard terms to protect our rights as investors."

Isn’t the Fed increasing “liquidity” faster than any asset price deflation we are seeing?
I barely can stand to look at this week's H.4.1 report. The Treasury "bake sale" (aka. supplementary financing account) raised $140B more for the Fed, bringing the total to over $400B injected. This isn't a problem until it becomes one (read: central banks and SWF stop buying our Treasuries).

TOB, you got the quote wrong.
surfer-x says: Now, I am become Debt, the destroyer of wallets.

Ed Jew, former SF supervisor, plead guilty to federal extortion and bribery charges. He still could face charges relating to the fact that his "primary residence" wasn't in Ess Eff. Oh, and that's right -- my favorite part -- he also claimed on a mortgage application that his primary residence would be in Arizona. He's not being prosecuted for that though... I mean, it's a victimless crime -- how could anyone be hurt by that?

>>no “bank failure friday” update today? What gives?

The celebration was premature. Two bank failures have been announced.

No more value judgment. Banksters are not evil. But they are the enemies. Let them eat cake!

actually the quote is from Oppenheimer… who was a Jew who did something tangible…. smashing atoms.
Geeesh... I was joking. :-) And surely you, of all people, know what Oppenheimer was quoting...

And on this blog we still have haters, quibblers, and the tragically distracted.

For what its worth, the G7 meeting looks to be a flop.
Pualson is giving off the smell of FEAR.

We take 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

Nationalism and protectionism seem to be built into our genes.

In any event, look for capitualtion in the near term. Monday?

As for housing, which is the basis of this blog.

What used to pass as pretty spirited debate here, the notion of stickiness, will still hold out. Job loss, wealth destruction, and the loss of credit still take time to manifest. The fortress has still only gone down 10% and yet its rise was well over 100%. I think it will take 6 months to tell that tale. Look for incresed inventory and price declines in PA, MV, LA, Cup, etc starting then. Of course, what makes these places so desirable is excellent public schools. Considering the CA budget is a joke and the single largest expense, by far, is education - expect to see something radical within the year.
Other than greatly expanded class sizes (as they lay off teachers) I think we will see more and more emergency municiple bond measures be created and subsequently voted down.
I am trying to recall, have we had 4 day weeks before?
In any event, the great entitlement of education will be reshaped in the wake of what is happening.

No more race-baiting on my thread. :)

I am mostly anti-PC, but blaming anyone is not going to help us.

"Cain't we all just get along?"

Sorry, I've been waiting to use that line for ten years.

I'll.......stfu now. :)

Wow, Peter P claimed this thread.

As if I didn't have enough to pester me today, it's now snowing heavily in Boise. This is the earliest snowfall in Boise since records were kept starting in 1940. :(

Dennis, it is global warming. :)

Speaking of trains, here are the results for the Capitol Corridor (September 2008). Inexpensive Bay Area housing is just a train ride away.

144,747 passengers +24.7% vs. 2007
This is a new September record, and keeps the Capitol Corridor third
busiest route in the country, by a wide margin
Passengers for 12 months of FY 2007-08: 1,693,580, just 6,420 passengers
shy of 1.7 million riders. (12 months of FY 2007-08: +16.6%)
Just for comparison, 10 years ago, FY 1997-98, ridership was only 463,000
for the year!

$1,953,836 September revenue +27.9% vs. 2007 (FY 2007-08: $23,634,341 for +22.0% growth)

TOB, why should you care what mike thinks? All I care is that you often have good points.

Heck I have ancestors in the Blackfoot nation.

Are you guys all ready for Bill Ayres as Secretary of Education? :( Kids will be trained to turn their parents into the authorities for conservative actions.

The average Joe has no business "investing" in Wall Street. Mutual Funds, puts, calls, stock picking, and commodities should be done for fun with money you can afford to lose. Fun money, like at the horse track. Basically, any "investment" that requires paying a commission should be avoided. The only time Joe should see a "finance professional" is his insurance agent for a term life policy.

Joe should pay off credit card bill in full every month. This beats leaving a balance because Joe sent the payoff money to his "broker" for this months "dollar cost averaging."

Joe should buy a car he can pay off in 3 years yet drive for 6. Make the payments to the bank for three years, then make that payment to himself for 3 years. You could buy the next car for cash.

Joe should buy a house he could afford to have paid off by the time he is 45.

By not paying interest on Credit Cards, and by reducing interest on house and car loan, Joe will have some bread to save.

Put the extra into insured accounts (IRA, self directed 401k, other savings). FDIC is like "privatize profits, socialize risks" for the common man. Play "investor" by shopping for the highest insured rate.

Having no house or car payments at age 45 allows one to really pack away the savings. Some for retirement, some for trips, some to lose in Wall Street.

Good luck convincing Joe. Realtors and bankers want Joe in the biggest house with the biggest loan, finance types want Joe to "invest" rather than get out of debt, and there is the peer pressure to out-bling the neighbors.

The average Joe should not be bailed out either. The best way to educate is to live and let fail.

We learn best from failures and their associated pain.

The average Joe should not be bailed out either

Right. What got me started on that rant was that a "Republican" running for president wants to use tax money pay off the "excess" of one's mortgage over the current house value.

Obama wants to buy votes with a $1,000 stimulus check, McCain wants to buy votes with mortgage redux. McCain may have miscalculated. There may be far more renters and responsible mortagage payers to be angered by this, than slackster overextenders who will benefit.