patrick.net

but our military capability is one which no one can deny is able to topple any government in the world within a day

True. We still have a first-rate military, and I'm not against using it against credible threats (operative word being "credible"). But I also think that it's too easy easy to fall into the trap of 'when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail'.

I fear the economy is going to grind to a halt next quarter. Alot of people are reading the gloomy articles every day and cutting down their spending. We're already seeing the signs of it in retail. As that slowdown trickles through, all the companies that supply retail will start to slow down. That's when you'll start to see the serious layoffs.

I expect big semiconductor players (AMAT, LAM, NVL) will start to get hit HARD in June-July. Granted, that's a small slice, just happens to be the one I'm most familiar with. I would expect other industries to show similar trends.

We KNOW this is coming. The question is what is going to get us out of it? We'll be taking hits from all sides.

I think the reason N Korea and Iran seem to be behaving is because they really do believe we are willing and able to decapitate their governments

Don't forget Libya. Thier leader became amazingly cooperative aftter Saddam was pulled from that hole.

Randy H once challenged the myth and said that the mfr. base has actually grown since the 70’s, but had extreme difficulty convincing anyone?

Including me. Ok, I get that automation, digital revolution, robotics, etc. have greatly increased the efficiency of manufacturing and hugely reduced the number of workers employed at it. But riddle me this: if we're *still* such a giant manufacturing powerhouse, why are so many common manufactured goods in the U.S. and abroad not American made? Even if it's Robbie the Robot and not Rosie the Riveter making the stuff, you don't see much "Made in the USA" on anything these days (barring software, military/aerospace & entertainment).

Just when you thought government bailout proposals couldn't get any worse:

Congress Considers $15,000 Rebate Checks For All Home Buyers

Let me know when they start giving away free ponies.

From Harm's link:

"If we can convince buyers to come back to the marketplace and buy these houses, then the houses aren't vacant.

What a turd. The houses are not going to stay vacant. Left alone , the new occupants will just pay a lower price for them. Even so, wouldn't a buyer of a new house leave thier old residence "vacant?"

Congress Considers $15,000 Rebate Checks For All Home Buyers

Over 40% of existing homes come into second/investment homes category. They probably want to push that to 60%.

What a joke.

The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which would offer $4 billion to cities to rehab or knock down foreclosed properties.

Great. Politically connected builders can have thier unsold inventory bought and demolished by localities. All at a "fair" price, of course.

HARM,

I'll see if I can't entice Randy H to chime in but as you'd suspect he had ample data to back his claim. I think it's more a matter of mfr. shift than a mfr. exodus.

True, most of the things we as consumers come in contact with on a daily basis aren't mfr. locally but I don't know anybody that grew up saying they wanted to work in a plastic cup factory? I think most appliances are still made here as well. Kind of inefficient to ship.

Peter P… your precious gold finally surpassed $1,000 an ounce

Yes, April Gold futures finally breached $1000. There is much shyness in the market though.

I am looking at the 5-min bar chart right now and it is off a bit from the peak.

sa,

Exactly. (Even if they ARE right in Las Vegas/PHX etc!) I will say though (and I can't believe it myself) but I'm more inclined to agree w/ Harry Reid. Kill the problem at the source. Let local meth addicts take care of the stripping and let the CAT do the rest. Let the banks tally their losses.

Let's git' r' done.

Hmmmm...if I were FDR.

FDR had a problem in that the Republicans at the time were an isolationist party.

FDR should have put more emphasis on a draft for the Army and Navy, and thereby downplayed the CCC, WPA, and their ilk. Similarly with defense engineering and procurement. Had the P-51 been available even one year earlier we wouldn't have sustained such horrendous bomber losses over Germany. Our troups in the Pacific suffered because there weren't enough M1 Garands to go around and they had to keep using the 1903 Springfield until late in 1943. Had our search radars been produced in more quantity AND integrated into CINCPAC command structure, the Pearl Harbor raid might have turned into the Battle of Midway for the Japanese a year earlier.

If FDR had supported Billy Mitchell and Leo Szilard/Albert Einstein from the get-go, WWII might have ended two years earlier.

So in a current analogy….how would you feel about President McCain putting Ron Paul in as IRS Commissioner?

Or Treasury Secretary. :)

Ron Paul for any post would be fine by me. And how about a new cabinet position: Housing Czar. Patrick, Ben Jones or Robert Shiller would all be fine choices.

Hillary could put in L A-Y....;)

By the way, whatever happened to HUD? Is it still around as a cabinet-level position?

RE: Housing Czar.

Why not David Lereah? ;)

Wow, these guys have sure been quiet lately....
www.hud.gov/about/index.cfm

I thought HUD was one of those departments that Dubya dissolved.

HARM Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 9:00 am
"Just when you thought government bailout proposals couldn’t get any worse:
Congress Considers $15,000 Rebate Checks For All Home Buyers"

These idiots still don't get it. There is no shortage of buyers, it is still a price issue. This is starting to get silly now.

Did anyone watch Dubya interview on PBS yesterday? I was working out when I saw the interview and almost fell off the machine from inability to contain my laughter.

DennisN Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am
"By the way, whatever happened to HUD? Is it still around as a cabinet-level position?"

I thought so, that's one of those token black person jobs that will always be around.

These "idiots" understand the issue perfectly. They want to keep up the price so that one low-price transaction won't "destroy" the value for the whole neighborhood - i.e. balance sheet of banks holding these houses as collateral.

Gold is still dropping. It is not ready for staying above 990 yet. :(

Not investment advice.

sp,
Thanks for the manufacturing output list. Keep in mind, however, that the numbers from that total list are far overshadowed by consumer spending in this f'ed up country of ours. That's why until recently, bulls and pollyannas kept saying that manufacturing job losses didn't matter as much, since the "reilient" consumer would hold up our economy.

Now look what's happening. So much for that one.

@Peter P & DennisN,

Sick, just... sick.

HARM, don't worry. Mr. Market is bigger than any government.

Anyway, isn't the HUD secretary the "housing czar" you wanted? What the heck is the HUD secretary supposed to be doing in this crisis? Why is the ball in the court of the FED chairman and Treasury secretary?

"This starting to get silly now"

Certainly is. Johnny Isaccson (rep. AND realtwhore) talks about a serious recession for housing? Well Who TF cares? That's why I think Reid is closer on this one. Firstly it's $10 bil. LESS and secondly rather than focus on propping up prices (bank collateral) his plan salvages the FB's they can and bulldozes the rest!

Get out da' way!

The DQ numbers are out for SoCal. It's chock full o' eye-popping data:

http://www.dqnews.com/News/California/Southern-CA/RRSCA080313.aspx

How's this one:

"Of the homes that resold in February, about one-third, 33.5 percent, had been foreclosed on at some point since January 2007. A year earlier the figure was 3.5 percent."

Or:

"The median sale price dropped by a record 17.6 percent from a year ago, a real estate information service reported."

Or:

"Last month's sales total was the second-lowest for any month in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. The prior month's total of 9,983 was the lowest ever. Since September, sales each month have been a record low for that particular month."

DennisN,

The OFHEO Director has aready gone on the record as saying he thinks bumping Jumbo limits is the dumbest thing he's ever heard so he's been marginalized. What the admin. wants is a Housing Czar that will shore up existing prices!

Sometimes I wish I knew more about hacking...

www.hud.gov/foreclosure/index.cfm

Wouldn't it be fun to put in a re-direct to www.youwalkaway.com on that HUD page?

They want to keep up the price so that one low-price transaction won’t “destroy” the value for the whole neighborhood - i.e. balance sheet of banks holding these houses as collateral.

All they need to do is play with the bookkeeping.

What they could do is publish a "true comps" list. All data for sales such as foreclosures, short sales, and the like would be excluded, and only "true home sales" data would go into the "true comps".

-4. You get a personal consultation with one of our highly experienced Real Estate Attorneys making sure the lender followed the law perfectly. If they did not, you may have a case against them.-

YouWalkAway must be reading the blog since this was my idea for something missing from their model. They used to specifically say they weren't lawyers. Their credit repair is fishy because they just buy a credit repair attempt from one of those shady companies that sends out zillions of frivilous credit disputes to the agencies. My model at least didn't involve credit fraud.

I don't see them on the main page. I guess they aren't advertising with Patrick anymore. I hope he made some money off of them.

Soldiers are not getting payed.

Source?

Anyway, isn’t the HUD secretary the “housing czar” you wanted? What the heck is the HUD secretary supposed to be doing in this crisis? Why is the ball in the court of the FED chairman and Treasury secretary?

All good questions deserving of further research. As far as I can tell, HUD has little or no authority to regulate mortgage lenders, the GSEs or Realtor groups, such as NAR. Sec. Jackson also does not appear to have the authority to influence rate decisions at the Fed, or to regulate how MBS/CDO securities get issued. So, the short answer is... powerless?

http://www.hud.gov/about/secretary/jacksonbio.cfm
http://www.hud.gov/library/bookshelf12/hudhistory.cfm

Only a slight bearing to the subject of the thread... but what is with the EU continuing to harass American companies?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/intel-defends-itself-before-european/story.aspx?guid=%7B4CE9A7FA%2DD792%2D4700%2D95B6%2D0AFB77094AA9%7D&siteid=yhoof

Does anyone know exactly where the money generated from these fines go? If their intention is truly to promote fair play in the marketplace, then most of the money should go to the offending company's competitors. However, I would say that is very unlikely. Anyone know?

Ah... here you go...

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/125&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

goes straight into the EU budget. What a bunch of BS.

I don't know if you guys heard about the Hershey plant in Oakdale shutting down, but that is one shuttleing that pissed me off. They made Kisses and Miniatures, etc. It was a profitable operation, in the black, stable, local workforce, the whole package. The excuse in the paper was that it was running at 40% capacity. Ok, bummer number, but they closed Oakdale and moved the 40% to Mexico to up the capacity in the cheaper to run plant. It wasn't that Oakdale wasn't profitable, it was that Mexico was MORE profitable. Profit is profit but there is a limit. I would have closed the Mexico location, brought that production here and hired more bodies. Remember, Oakdale was profitable. Can you imagine the public relations boom. WE'RE KEEPING JOBS IN AMERICA! WE'RE PATRIOTIC! WE'RE AMERICA'S CHOCOLATE COMPANY!!!!!! And the list could go on for ever. They wouldn't be able to keep that stuff on the shelves.

If I want to buy foreign chocolate, I'll buy Nestle'. And I do.

NOT CHOCOLATE BUYING ADVICE

My point is that a whole lot of manufacturing could come back to the States and do very well it's just that the proft margin is so much greater when you pay people with grains of rice instead of money. That worm will turn.

TOB,

Uh... that would be me. I get payed by the post! I have some extruded aluminum engine cowlings, where did you want me to set them? The living room? You got it!

I know plenty of people that work at Leatherman's (tool maker) Warn Winch (automotive/marine) and PrecisionCastParts (aviation). My wife works for a company that makes ultra-sound equipment along with scores of other products primarily re-sold to OTHER mfrs! Now we DID lose Techtronix (and basically Freightliner) but they were on their way out anyway. We have start-up/spin-off firms and St. Jude makes some pretty hi-tech stuff here too. Medicated stent technology.

So whatever.