patrick.net

The only real question is how can a bubble sitter escape inflation?

My own strategy so far is foreign stocks, or stocks that earn foreign currency, and PUTs on the banks, and RYWBX, which I just heard about this morning. RYWBX is an inverse dollar index fund. Seems like it ought to do great as the dollar continues to tank.

Not investment advice! More of an investment question, really.

Patrick

Test comment from Graystroke.

Did the comedy writers in Hollywood go on strike so they would have time to write a script for the banks?

Which are the best financial stocks to short? I do not want to buy inverse ETFs because I prefer to maintain a long-short portfolio. On the other hand, PUT options requires much better timing.

There is no escape! Whether FB's have their plastic w/ WaMu and their mortgage at Citi (or vice versa) really doesn't matter at this point. You guys really out smarted yourselves on this one!

Finally! Someone listened to Jim Cramer.

"This is like March 2000 all over again! Look at all the investors that continued to cover margin calls on their tech stocks only to watch them go all the way down! They should have walked away from a depreciating asset! The same thing is going on right now with your house, just dump it and walk away! What you SHOULD be doing is keeping your payments current on your credit cards so you'll have money to cover your living expenses while you wait this thing out!"

Was that close? I realize they probably took the video link down so I've commited it to memory. Anyone have that link?

Farnoush Torabi (or something like that did the interview). I think it ran on "thestreet.com" and they made him take it down almost immediately. I was referred to it through HousingDoom but the PPT probably made him take it down too?

That is my question as well. All of us who have saved some money by not paying huge mortgages, where do we put that money? I mean, prices aren't going to hit rock bottom for awhile and meanwhile, inflation is eating at my savings.

Can't they just take out the equity in their home and pay down those high rate credit cards?

(Ditech commercial with guy feeding credit cards into lawn mulcher)

Anyone remember that one? Well now you can just disassemble your house one board at a time and feed it into that wood chipper! And if your banker gets p*ssy just feed that m%ther f@cker in there too!

Fargo Style Baby!

DinOR, I trust that you are not suggesting any illegal behavior. :lol:

@Peter P,

Not at all. As long as my lender "mod's" the loan and takes minimum payments on my credit cards there will be no need for me to go down to Home Despot (TM) and put a wood chipper on my Visa before they repo my truck.

(Kidding) :)

All of us who have saved some money by not paying huge mortgages, where do we put that money?

FYI... Finally called Wells Fargo. The smallest safety deposit box (2"x5"x21") goes for $40 a year, so break even with GLD (management fees) is approx. at a 10 oz. bar. If purchasing more, then maybe the box is worth it to go physical (no dollar value placed on personal safety). Plus you have to take into account losses on dealer spreads. NIA. Usual tinfoil hat disclaimers about gov't seizure of gold.

It depends on your risk appetite. The best hedge against inflation, once the inflationary trend of confirmed, has always been gold and commodity historically. When the store of value, aka USD, is in trouble, people will try to store value elsewhere, and in most situations, in real stuff.

Foreign stocks will take a hit as well, because this is a global asset bubble, everyone will be affected. There may be very select stock sectors that will benefit from this.

I don't see hyperinflation happening in the US because we are a military super power. However, inflation in the 20s or even 30s is completely reasonable in the great unwinding. China's reported inflation is already in the double digits, and it can't take too long for them to shoulder that pressure alone. They will have to export the inflation.

Foreign currencies can only appreciate so much, because they don't want to take a hit in their employment and export trade either. One should also try to stay away from emerging markets, this is the time to flee to quality, if you are just after capital preservation, or slight depreciation in exchange for safety, commodity currencies like CAD and AUD are the best bets, especially the latter due to the high yield. Australia may raise interest rate in Dec bringing the total yield to 7%, further widening the interest gap with USD.

I put a few grand here and there for shorting and buying puts, but you can hardly build a portfolio on shorting and puts.

@DinOR :lol: !

Once again with the new BK law we that government intervention in free markets causes all real estate bubbles.

I suppose its inescapable - in fact you can argue the private ownership of land cant even exist without a government to enforce the ownership laws. And when the country grows this government needs more revenue to continue, so the tax laws change over time morphing the markets as they pass thier laws to get revenue. 200 years later we have p13, any 2 will do rule, etc.....

Stupid bastards.

Citi's trying to loan me $4500 and I'm FAR in default, they're desperately trying to prime the pump.......

EBGuy,

I'd heard that people used to put their gold in the upper tank of their toilet in the event of a total loss by fire. I suppose the theory is that the fire will run out of fuel before it evaporates the water in the tank turning your life savings into candy wrapper thick puddles of what used to be gold.

No Peter, I'm not advocating anyone burn their house down to test the theory. Sounds like a good one for the Mythbusters though?

You know, cash is getting more valuable in terms of houses per million dollars. Used to be 1 house/million. Soon it will be 2 houses per million, and perhaps eventually 3 houses per million.

So cash is actually appreciating if you look at it that way. And houses are the biggest expense I can think of. If I can save $500,000 on a house, that pays for a lot of inflation in bread, milk, gasoline, etc...

Patrick

Visa/MC Disclaimer: Page 37, paragraph 6, lines 17-20

Please be advised that ingesting your credit card into a wood chipper (or similar device) does not absolve you from making your full payments in a timely manner.

See, it's right there in black and white.

Please be advised that ingesting your credit card into a wood chipper (or similar device) does not absolve you from making your full payments in a timely manner.

Please be further advised that atomizing your credit card with energy beams, or other alien technologies, or occult practices does not absolve you from debt.

Being flat broke does though!

Er, althought.....

the food in FEMA internment camps is almost sure to be "catered" by Sodexho, yuk.

All you assets belongings to we.

HARM,
People really liked your comments on "Kalifornia Uber Alles".

"alien technologies, or occult practices"

That's what I thought was so irresponsible with all of the lenders. Advertising that your neighbor would be so jealous when you flaunt your housing wealth over his plastic wealth? Well...? You just took something you could (at the time) easily walk away from and tied to your house!

How much of a stigma will having a foreclosure on your credit report be when every 7th American has one? Anyone have any luck finding the "other" famous Cramer meltdown?

Now, in reality, the new BK law does allow people to walk away from their CC debts IF they're earning below the median income for their area, the best place I know of to find out about this is the good old Nolo Press which I think may be www.nolo.com - the truth is, I think people are keeping their CCs up to date and letting the house go because a house is a huge money-sink where they can go rent a place for 1/2 or 1/3 of what they were paying for the house.

Kinda like the Joads leaving the farm but keeping the truck.

We need Ron Paul!!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=3839318&page=3

"There's a dollar crisis out there and people's money is being stolen; people who have saved, they're being robbed. I mean, if you have a devaluation of the dollar at 10 percent, people have been robbed at 10 percent. But how can you pursue this policy without addressing the subject that somebody's losing their wealth because of a weaker dollar? And it's going to lead to higher interest rates and a weaker economy."

I thought people were using their credit cards to pay their mortgages, I guess they realized that was a pretty useless idea of prolonging the agony.

Does that then mean, they will spend spend spend at Christmas time, as they will not bother keeping the mortgage up - and it is cheaper to rent!

They're not going to spend spend spend, this Xmas will be a lean one.

Here is a nice chart.

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=d12

If you are outside US, the US stock market has crashed big time for you already. Somehow, I don't feel foreigners will come bargain hunting for our stocks yet.

They’re not going to spend spend spend, this Xmas will be a lean one.

The retailers are already hurting. Pain comes early this Xmas.

Is shorting UUP a viable strategy?

So if the big banks “failed” - would all credit cards stop working too? Would it all become cash only? Or would people still be able to operate their accounts?

Should I withdraw some savings and stash it in the mattress? How much?

StuckInBA - it's UnAmerican to mention that the dollar has fallen 30% over the last few years.....

So if the big banks “failed” - would all credit cards stop working too?

Big banks will not fail... they are too big to LET fail.

it’s UnAmerican to mention that the dollar has fallen 30% over the last few years…..

Nothing is more unAmerican than being a renter.

http://patrick.net/wp/?p=446#comments

Claire - what's happening is, people are unable to make their credit card payments, then if the cards aren't already up there, the interest is raised to 30% and sometimes even more - which eats up any "room" they had, and people get threatening letters. Actually the letters are amazingly polite so far, it's a very interesting process to watch lol.

As you may guess, this is my situation so I am happy to share my experiences with anyone here curious about, or looking forward to, the life of an insolvent bum.

So.... since I can't charge, the only card useage I enjoy right now is using my food stamp card, I have to admit that's fun.

It's all cash for me, I don't have a bank account and in fact, this is funny but right now I don't have the $100 cash to start one at the local bank. I'll open one when I make some money doing something I guess. It's all cash for me right now.

Hmm, now if the banks fail ...... I'd say that yeah, let's say you have a Citi card that you have little or no balance on, you're a good user, and you use it for say your Starbucks purchases and pay it off each month. It's a good way to have all your purchases for the month on one bill actually. And, let's say Citi fails, they're bankrupt, will your faithful Citi card still work at Starbucks? I'm going to guess it will, because Citi will get bought out by some other bank, or they will try to keep doing business as long as they can - which apparently companies can when in chapter 11. If for some reason the bank just plain stops operations, I'm sure you'd get a polite letter saying your card will stop working and that's that.

Depending on how fast things fall, and how much of the financial system is automated, maybe we will see CCs just stop working. I think ultimately we will see people going back to cash - a lot of us are going to become cash-only curmudgeons!

I finally talked to my buddy down in El Mirage, AZ. I sent him the link from the last thread.
He says, "Sounds about right. There are 50 to 60,000 homes for sale in the Phoenix Metro area and a full one third are unoccupied."
Can you imagine that? Geeeez.
I'll agree that it is a big area, but still.

PeterP - I've got you beat, couch-surfer in a paid-for place. Who eats old fashioned Quaker Oats for b'fast.

El Mirage is a hellhole. At least it was when I last drove by it, about 3 mos. ago.

Coworker just returned from Toronto - He paid $5 CAD for a gallon of milk. The inflation will ravage both strong and week currencies!